


Sleepless On D Block

by morkfrompork



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-07-02 07:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15792246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morkfrompork/pseuds/morkfrompork
Summary: AU. 1984Nestled in the mountains in the middle of nowhere is Mt. Brownstone Penitentiary, a place to stick the most wretched scum of the Earth and a place where noble guards have to keep watch over them.





	1. Night One: Jan 31- Feb 1, 1984

Mt Brownstone Penitentiary wasn’t quite located on top of a mountain, nor was it exactly off. It was built in a small valley with only one road in and out and four mountains all around, completely blocking off what was left of the outside world. Warden Burke said he liked it that way. It crushed dreams of escape before they had their chance to even enter the brain. As for the guards… well, it made their job of keeping prisoners inside a whole lot easier. But deep down inside, all of them, all 65 guards employed at Mt Brownstone hated how isolated it all was. It made us feel like we were prisoners ourselves. 

The only freedom you could see was the sky and whatever lies beyond it. It was a joke I heard once when I was making my rounds that there were only two ways to get out of the prison: the guards’ way; through the front gate, and the prisoners’ way; through the sky by way of the electric chair. Perhaps not the funniest joke to the guards, but we weren’t the ones whose daily lives were monitored every second of the day. I’m told that when you’re trapped long enough, being trapped doesn’t scare you anymore; only the things that’ll happen when you aren’t trapped anymore. So they made jokes about it to make it less scary. I guess it’s a brand of humor you have to develop over time. 

The prisoners I watched over didn’t joke as much as the other ones in the prison did. They didn’t have much to joke about, or many people to joke to. Senses of humor are regularly under strain on death row. Mostly, the ones I watched over were quiet; either praying or sleeping. They had a lot of time for both. Sometimes during the day they made book requests and we’d go up Saturday evening with a list of the books they wanted to read during their last days and checked in with the librarian about the subject matter of the books. Nothing could be about prisons, or mention prisoners, or be a crafting book, or mention suicide or death in any way, even if it was only glossed over lightly. A safety hazard, to both us and them. So,many of the books were denied. 

Death row at Mt Brownstone was more of a random corridor that no one could figure out what to do with so they just decided to add a few cells and desks and a solitary room at the very end. For the time being, the desk at the front end of the corridor was considered my desk. It didn’t belong to anyone, exactly, but it contained all the files and rules of the prison somewhere in its drawers. Whoever was the head of guard that month got to sit at the desk. During the month of February, that was me. 

Being the head of guard got its perks (mainly the desk), but it also meant that I had the night shift every day all month. Clock in at 8pm, clock out at 8am. Every three days, my overnight companion shifted between the three other guards who worked on my block. For some reason, that February was the one when I was just mentally opposed to the entire idea of being awake all night and sleeping a few hours during the day. It was a horrible system, but the sleep I did get was just as good as the sleep I’d get at night, so I kept my mouth shut. Not that I’d open it anyway. I was known for being one of the silent ones on the block. My fellow guards were far more chatty, and that suited me just fine. I would much rather sit and listen and think. 

On the first night watch of February, I was yawning my head off every few minutes and wishing that I could just be home in bed and not have to worry that Tracii, our only inmate at the time was going to try and use his bedsheets to strangle himself again. He had never taken kindly to being behind bars, and I supposed he preferred to leave the prisoners’ way. He was a good kid, as prisoners go, but he needed to be watched. I never like thinking of how Duff, one of the other guards, had to wrangle Tracii to the ground and rip the bedsheet from him, then get him into a straightjacket and into the solitary room all by himself last week. That’s when we decided that Tracii needed two guards on him at all times. Sometimes one was enough to have on block if we only had one prisoner. Luckily enough, Tracii was sleeping the night of the first, which left Slash, my first night watch partner of the month, fully free to talk my ear off about the girl he had met the night before. 

“I'm telling you, Izz, she could suck a golf ball through a bendy straw!” He insisted dreamily, sitting against the front of my desk. “I've never felt anything like it before…” 

“With a mouth like that, she couldn't have been cheap,” I chuckled, pulling a cigarette out of the top desk drawer. 

“She wasn't. But fuck, worth every cent. Pass me one of those?” I tossed another to Slash before pulling out a lighter and closing the drawer. I flicked on the little flame and held it up to Slash’s cigarette, but was interrupted by the phone before I could light my own. 

“Check on Tracii. I’ve got this.” I waved Slash down the corridor as I picked up the receiver and placed it between my shoulder and my ear. “D Block,” I announced, leaning back in my chair. I never liked it when administration called us. They only ever called with bad news or extra work. 

“Isbell, how’s 2649 doing?” I recognized it as the Warden’s voice which somehow made me more tense. 

“Sleeping, sir. Just sent Hudson to check on him,” I responded, trying to sound more pleasant than I felt towards him. 

“Good. He hasn’t been left alone since the… incident?” 

“Of course not, sir. I know he’s at risk.” 

“Just making sure you remember. You’ve got fresh meat coming in around nine tomorrow. Take all this time you’re wasting smoking with Hudson and prep cell two. I’m told he’s a wild one.” I grit my teeth a little and thanked fate he had called instead of shown up. That way I could roll my eyes all I wanted. 

“Of course. Right away, sir.” He hung up as soon as I acknowledged him, so I did the same, sighing. Warden Burke grated on my nerves. The fact that he had personally called down, probably even from his own home, judging by how late it was, just showed how deeply worried about Tracii he must be. So worried that he can’t use his name. 

I took this moment of quiet to finally treat myself to a cigarette. It was the last vice I had since kicking all my other habits the year before. 

“Tracii’s good. He’s actually sleeping tonight instead of just faking,” Slash declared as he resumed his spot against my desk. 

“Don’t get comfy. Burke wants us to clear out cell two. Apparently we’ve got a wild one coming in tomorrow,” I yawned, standing from my own seat. 

“Jesus, cell two? Why that one?” 

“I think he’s pissed at me for not assigning anyone for the night shift rotation last week.” 

“How could you know what Tracii was gonna try? He hadn’t said a word before then. You were just trying to save a little of the budget…” Slash kept making excuses on my behalf as I located the keys to cell two and led him down the corridor as quietly as possible. 

“Yeah, but you know Burke. A prison suicide would ruin his shining public reputation, so anyone remotely involved gets to eat those consequences for every meal.” As I spoke, I finally jimmied the key into cell two’s lock and stood back a little to accomodate for the enormous pile of crap that always came tumbling out when the door gave way. D Block had no storage room and most likely never would. The best we had was the little garage-type area where we held our executions, and they happened often enough that none of us felt like cleaning it out every time, so whatever odds and ends we had to put somewhere, we stuffed into cell two. 

“I thought we told Steven to not have it all fall out last time we cleaned,” Slash groaned, looking over the mess we’d been left with. 

“Steven half-asses things worse than we do. What’d you expect?” I pulled the keys out of the cell door and stuffed them into my pocket. “He’s coming in at nine tomorrow, so just be glad we don’t have to give him the grand tour.” 

“You know Burke is gonna make you stay anyway. You’re always here for the fresh meat.” I shrugged in response. It was true that almost all the new inmates got their grand tour from me, but it was usually because my partner for the shift couldn't be bothered or was just plain scared of the prisoners that walked through the doors. 

When you kept an eye on them for so long and got to know them, it almost got hard to remember that they were convicted felons. The worst of the prison. They were the baddest and the most dangerous ones, but the closest to death. They definitely didn't act like the most dangerous, except for a few troublemakers who had spent most of their lives behind bars and never seemed to be softening up. Others kept to themselves. Like Tracii. 

He had been suffocating in guilt so deeply that he hadn't said a single word to any of us until after we took him out of the solitary room. Then, and only then had he given us his side of the story. The side the jury and judges never seem to believe. He was in for seven murders, but hadn't intended to cause any of them. It was a juvenile game of setting various objects on fire and then putting them out when you chickened out. The object of the game was to go the longest without putting out your fire. Tracii had gotten carried away. The book he set on fire ignited other books, then the bookshelf and floor. The apartment building was an inferno by the time the fire brigade arrived, leaving seven trapped inside and Tracii getting thrown under the bus by his so-called ‘friends’. Seven counts of murder and one count of arson. Death penalty and no one in the audience complained when the gavel was swung. Tracii hadn’t either. He accepted his fate and went quietly out of the room in chains. 

The papers all called him a ‘pure psychopath with seemingly no guilt about what he has done’. He felt guilt, alright. But the papers didn’t see it. Only the people charged with watching him every second of every day. Only we heard him crying to himself at night and praying for his soul every day. Strange how religious people got when the walked through the doors of D block. They were different people with different crimes on the outside, but on the inside, they were all the same scared little kid who got separated from their parents in a crowded area. Too many people around with no sign of safety. Walls closing in around them, no way of escape. 

“Fuck, Izzy, hold the table!” Slash’s panicked almost-scream shook me from my thoughts, bringing my attention to a card table balanced precariously on all the other crap in cell two, tilting back and forth above us. I reached up as quickly as possible and nudged it back onto its ledge, then held it there. 

“It’s the first time Tracii’s actually slept in weeks. The least we can do is keep from waking him up every two minutes with a fucking falling piece of furniture,” Slash whispered. 

“Yeah. He deserves that much.” I looked up at the six-foot high pile of stuff and then back at Slash. “Where are we gonna put all this, anyway?” 

“Cell three?” Slash grinned deviously. I couldn’t help but grin back. 

“You crazy fucker, Burke is gonna be pissed if he sees it,” I pointed out, shaking my head a little. 

“Well, if he won’t give us a storage closet, we’re gonna use what we’ve got. Right now, we’ve got five empty cells. I got the card table, you open cell three.” Slash motioned with his head and scooched over enough to hold the mountain of chairs and tables in place. I did as he suggested, and little by little, we moved most of the furniture to cell three. The rest we put in the dumpster at the back of D block. By the end, all that was left was a highly organized storage closet with the folding chairs stacked up on the bed, the three card tables shoved against the wall, and all the execution prep supplies arranged on the desk inside the cell. It wasn’t a pile of crap anymore, and we wouldn’t have to be careful when opening the door. The sun was about rising by the time I locked cell three. 

“Can you pick up breakfast? The fresh meat is going to have a hell of a time tryin to breathe in here with all this dust,” I asked Slash, observing the light gray fuzz that was coating every surface in the room. 

“Yeah, I can handle it. Anything in particular you want?” 

“It’s Friday, right? If Doris made some of her spicy beans, pick me up a bowl.” 

“Something that hot this early in the morning?” 

“I’m just in the mood for something firey this morning. Not sure why,” Slash shrugged and set off on his way to the prison cafeteria. 

Guards at Mt Brownstone had to be in and out of the cafeteria a half hour before the official morning of the prison, when all the lights were turned on and the morning count started. Lunchlady Doris liked to treat the night guards to something special on Fridays and made a meal that was almost like chilli, but not quite with enough other stuff in it to be chilli. So she called them her spicy beans. If a prisoner had gone on for a full month without picking a fight or breaking rules of any kind, they were permitted to have whatever was left of them. It definitely brought the levels of fighting down, practically overnight. 

“Hey, hey Boss Isbell?” I turned around and looked across the corridor to see Tracii sitting up in bed, ruffling his disheveled hair. 

“Something wrong, Tracii?” I asked, leaving behind the rag I was using to dust to approach the bars of his cell. 

“No, not at all. I was just wondering… are those beans as good as all of the guards say they are?” I chuckled a little at his hopeful question. 

“They’re better warm. Now, is there something the matter, or were you just wonderin about the prison’s secret menu?” Tracii shook his head sadly. 

“Nah. Just tried to imagine what they tasted like. I haven’t tasted anything with flavour in it for almost a month. Then I went and fucked up my good standing.” The tone of his voice hit me hard. It was against prison rules, but… 

“Well, I’m not known for my huge appetite, and I suppose if you swear by everything you believe in that for the rest of time you won’t pull any stunts, I could let you have whatever I can’t finish,” I finally told him. I could see his face light up immediately and my heart swelled a little. 

“Fuck yes, Boss Isbell! Yes, I’ll behave!” He grinned. If I had been looking closer, I could have probably seen tears in the corners of his eyes. 

“But if you tell a soul about this, I’m moving your DOE up by a week. Am I making myself clear?” I added, sternly. Tracii stopped grinning and nodded solemnly. 

“Yeah, I won’t tell anybody. Don’t worry about me, Boss Isbell.” I nodded and went back to cell two to finish the dusting and the rest of the prep it needed to accomodate a prisoner. I may have had a soft spot for Tracii because of what happened, but it was completely out of protocol for a guard to offer a convict anything, especially food. He could cost me my job if he ever told anyone. But the threat of a pushed-up DOE would probably remain in his brain, even if it wasn’t actually my place to do so. But he didn’t have to know that. 

DOE were the three letters that cause the blood of any inmate to run cold. It stood for Date Of Execution; the official day that they’d leave the prisoners’ way. I’d gotten Tracii’s DOE order a few days before: the 20th. I’d preside over it and give the order for electricity to be passed through his body until he was dead. The job was depressing as hell, but I clocked in my time and I dealt out the justice that the state told me to. And I tried not to think about it. 

As Tracii laid back down in his bed, Slash came in with two trays balanced precariously on top of one another. Each carried a hefty serving of toast and eggs. One had a little bottle of ketchup on it and the other had a little plastic bowl on the side. 

“Your girlfriend misses you, Izz. You get to get breakfast tomorrow,” Slash teased, setting down my tray on the desk. 

“Doris is my girlfriend now? I thought she was hot for Steven,” I chuckled, locking up cell two. 

“She flirts with all you guys except me. Now eat those beans; I had to stand in a fucking huge line to get them,” He motioned to the small bowl, then started dumping ketchup all over his entire plate. 

“What time is it now anyway?” I asked, sitting down to start eating my own breakfast. 

“Just after seven, I think. But you can take your time. I’m positive Burke is gonna call in any second telling you to stay and deal with the wild one.” 

“Think so? Duff’s pretty good at dealing with the wild ones. I mean, he got Tracii in and out of the jacket single-handedly. Besides, I wanna go home and sleep.” Another yawn came through to emphasize my point. Slash just shrugged and shoveled another hunk of egg into his mouth. 

And thus we ate in silence for a while, checking up on Tracii when we were finished. Well, I checked on Tracii; Slash searched through the drawer to find an after-breakfast smoke. I had the small bowl with two mouthfuls of spicy beans in hand when I went down the center of the corridor, and my billy club clutched in the other. 

“As promised, Lunchlady Doris’s famous spicy beans,” I declared, passing them through the bars of his cell. Tracii practically leapt up to grab the bowl before I changed my mind. 

“Don’t choke on them. I’ll pick up the bowl when your actual breakfast gets here. Don’t tell anyone I gave these to you, understood?” I told him as the bowl changed hands. 

“Unnerstoo’, Bawse I’bel,” He murmured through a mouthful of beans. I couldn’t help but smile a little at the joy on his face as I walked back towards the front of the corridor where Slash was exchanging our empty trays for a full one that contained Tracii’s official breakfast. He had the same food we did, but about half as much, and bone-cold. 

“Are you gonna fill the timesheet, or should I?” Slash asked as I sat back at the desk. 

“What’s there to fill in? All we did was clean out a cell,” I yawned again, rubbing my temples. 

“We prepped a cell. Need to give it the patented Izzy seal of approval.” 

“Yeah, I suppose I do. Don’t want ol Burke to complain that the night chief didn’t inspect the work of his underlings.” 

I opened the bottom drawer of the desk, where all the most important files were held. Guest book, inmate files, and the timesheet. Everything that went on on D Block needed to be fully and completely documented. The schedule itself was posted on the wall, and anything we did that wasn’t on the schedule had to be written on the timesheet and approved by the shift’s chief guard. 

_Prepped cell two for morning inmate arrival. Meets prison specifications. Jeff Isbell._

As soon as the time sheet was signed, the phone rang for the second time on my shift. Which was definitely twice too many. 

“D Block.” I tried to stifle a yawn as best I could, but it probably came through anyway. 

“Izz can you do me a solid?” A panicked voice came through the receiver. Duff’s. 

“You want me to stay late and help out with the fresh meat?” 

“Would you mind? Burke got Steve and me to come in early to transport him from county to there, and he’s already broken two noses since leaving his cell. We’re just gonna need a hand getting him in and settled.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. 

“Fuck, Duff, I’m exhausted. Are you sure you and Steve can’t handle him by yourselves?” 

“I wouldn’t ask if I could handle him. We’ve already got him in a jacket and irons, but he’s still resisting. Just until we get him locked up on the block? I’ll cover whatever time I took from you tonight if you want.” I had never heard Duff beg before, but that was probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to it. 

“Can’t you tranquilize him?” I suggested. “Knock him out, and then bring him?” 

“I’m sure Burke would love hearing about how I couldn’t handle a prisoner again. He’s been looking for a way to throw me out on my ass since last week. We can get him there; I’m just worried about getting him into his cell. My job is on the line, Izz.” He had a point there. The jacket would have to come off, and they couldn’t take off the jacket and make sure he stayed asleep after knocking him out for such a long, bumpy drive. If only we had tranquilizers left here that we could sedate him with… 

“Dammit, Duff, I’ll stay,” I eventually agreed. “But you’re covering for a full hour for me tonight.” I could practically hear Duff release the breath he had been holding. 

“Yeah, don’t worry. Sleep in this evening, Izz. You deserve it. I’ll be there in half an hour with the fresh meat.” 

“Is Steven coming in to keep an eye on Tracii with me, or should I get Slash to stay too?” I tried to go over the mixed-up schedule in my tired brain and figure out who was going to be where, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. 

“Let Slash get his beauty rest. God knows he needs it. Steven should be there any minute to help you watch Tracii, and I’ll be transporting this firecracker. Then afterwards, you’re getting as much fucking rest as you can handle. You sound beat, Izzy.” 

“I am,” I yawned. “Get him here soon so I can go home.” 

“Will do, Boss Isbell.” I could practically hear Duff chuckling to himself, even through the hung up receiver. 

“So you're staying extra?” Slash grinned victoriously. 

“Yeah, but not because Burke said so, and definitely not because you said I would. It's a favour to Duff.” I shrugged, leaning back in my seat. 

“Call it what you want. I was right. You were wrong. And now you get to deal with the inmate from hell while I go home and sleep.” Slash winked, turning to leave. 

“No one’s here to relieve you of duty, Slasher. You're stuck here with me and Tracii until Steven gets here,” I grinned. The superior grin vanished from Slash’s face as the memory of the rules came back to him. 

“Shit…” Was the only thing he could mutter before slumping back down to the seat he had held most of the night against my desk. I chuckled a little and adjusted my cap before leaning back against my chair to wait for Steven to arrive. Which he did about five minutes later. It was hard to tell who moved faster; Slash, who ran out the second he saw a glimmer of Steven, or Steven himself, who was panting from exertion as he entered the block doors. 

“Sorry… Late… Burke… Mad…” He eventually got out before shutting the door behind him. 

“What for? What's up his ass this time?” I groaned. 

“Gimme a fucking… second to catch my breath,” Steven requested before taking a deep breath. “Okay, so, this fresh meat is coming out of his holding cell in county. All they have on him is one pair of cuffs and he isn’t saying a fucking thing. I couldn’t even see his face. Right as they were about to hand him over to me and Duff, he goes ape shit and swings around, hitting his two guards in the faces, and all you hear is their noses breaking. Fucking blood everywhere, man!” All I could do was wince when I listened to Steven’s story. 

“Christ, what’d you guys do?” I asked, leaning forwards in my seat. 

“Duff gets him in a headlock from behind and gets him to the ground. They got more guards out and brought him back into county for a jacket and irons. Duff told me to come here without him so that Slash doesn’t get bent out of shape, and I guess they’ve either got him chained up in the truck or just attached to the roof with nails through his hands. I’m not looking forward to dealing with him today,” he finished his story with a shudder as sat on the corner of my desk. 

“So why’s Burke so mad? Duff got him down.” 

“Duff didn’t grab his arm fast enough. He wasn’t supposed to leave guard contact until in the truck. So since it was Duff’s fault that he was able to break noses, Burke’s pissed at him. He just took it out on me cause I’m here and I’m not as big as Duff, I guess.” 

“This guy… he’s gotta be a big fucker if he overpowered two guards with two others watching.” 

“You’d think, right? He’s about my size, maybe an inch or two taller. If you only saw him from the back, you’d think he was a chick. He’s skinny as all hell and he’s got the long straight red hair.” My brow furrowed a little at the description. 

“How did a shrimp like that break two noses in under thirty seconds?” Steven shrugged. 

“He’s good with his hands, I guess. I don’t know all that much about him. Duff has the file on him, so I guess you can take a look at it before you go if you want.” I shook my head and stood up. 

“I want to get home as soon as possible and sleep, but I also want to make sure that you guys aren’t left with a fucking sociopath while also having to worry about Tracii. Do you want to put him in solitary for a while when he gets here instead?” To be perfectly honest, this new inmate Steven had described was making me nervous. I didn’t usually get nervous on the job, but this was a story of a guy who was scarcely bigger than the shrimpy blonde watching me pace across the corridor of D Block who could take down two guards while handcuffed and needed a third to put him in a chokehold to go down. I’d seen big ones who could fight, and I’d seen small ones who hardly looked like they would hurt a fly. If there was one thing I always had to take with me for each and every inmate who walked down D Block, it was to never underestimate them. I was charged with detaining the worst scum of the world. There just happened to be some people who were smarter than me. 

“Maybe. But I don’t think Burke would like that all that much either. We can definitely shove him in there if he puts up a fight when we try to untie him and lock him up.” I nodded and paused in my pacing. 

“Yeah, yeah, we can do that. He probably won’t even put up a fight yet. Prisoners don’t usually fight unless they’re just getting in. He might be opposed to you and Duff, but he hasn’t met me or Slash yet, so unless my psychology is off, he’ll have gotten used to this place enough to have calmed down some by then. Just maybe keep Duff and him separate after we get him in.” 

“Could be tricky. Duff is the day chief today,” Steven pointed out. 

“Then make him do the paperwork and you can deal with fresh meat and Tracii,” I shrugged. “Decide for yourself. I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t kill you today and himself tonight.” 

“Speaking of Tracii, how’s he been doing this morning?” 

“You can ask me yourself, I’m not deaf,” I heard Tracii grumble from his cell. 

“Sorry, Tracii. How’ve you been this morning?” Steven corrected himself, calling down the corridor. 

“Very well, Boss Adler, thank you for asking. Looking forward to having some company down here.” 

“You’ll get it soon, Tracii. Looks like ol’ Duff’s unloading our boy right now.” Behind the desk in D Block was a small window used for exactly this situation; to ensure there were no problems with transporting inmates from the trucks to the cell. It was only about a fifteen, maybe twenty foot distance between the two. Duff didn’t seem to be as panicked as he sounded on the phone. He looked more like he was unloading groceries from the back of a pickup truck. 

“Steve, get out there and help him unload the fresh meat. I’ll get the doors open for all of you,” I ordered, jerking a thumb in the direction of the window as I made my way down the corridor, looking for the key to cell two once more. Steven nodded once before exiting D Block quickly. I let out a breath to try and calm my nerves before jamming the key to cell two inside the lock. 

“Boss Isbell, can I ask you a question?” I heard Tracii ask quietly from behind me. 

“I suppose so Tracii, but make it quick.” 

“Why are you so scared of the fresh meat?” I turned to look at him in a little bit of surprise. 

“Tracii, I’m not scared of the fresh meat. I’m nervous. I don’t know what he’s capable of, and I’m nervous that he’ll seriously hurt one of my men if any of us underestimate him. I’m always nervous whenever we get fresh meat in. It always fades once I’ve gotten to know them. Always. I’ve never met an inmate who made me nervous for more than a day. Why do you want to know, anyway?” Tracii shrugged. 

“I guess cause he scares me. I know that I won’t ever want to be on his bad side.” 

“That’s cause you’re unarmed. We have weapons that we will use if he gets out of hand. You don’t have anything to worry about if you don’t agitate him, Tracii.” He nodded once then went quiet in the back of his cell. The silence was short-lived, however. Hardly ten seconds later, the big metal door that led into D Block opened to reveal two guards and a third man who was about halfway between their heights. His head was bent down and long red hair covered his face completely. A straight jacket was wrapped around him and heavy leg irons restrained his ankles from being more than a few inches apart, causing the group to slowly shuffle across the floor. 

“Welcome to D Block. My name is Boss Isbell and you will refer to me as such,” I started giving him the standard introductory speech I gave every inmate who stayed on D Block, hardly even listening to what I was saying. “Meals are at eight, one, and six. You will receive one hour of recreational activity every afternoon at two. Library books can be requested, but will not be delivered unless approved. If you become overly boisterous or cause disturbance to other prisoners or break any standard prison rules, you will receive time in solitary. Any questions?” The hair swayed gently and I assumed he was shaking his head. 

“If we untie and unlock you, are we going to have any problems?” The hair shook again and I nodded to allow Steven and Duff to start slowly undoing the buckles on the jacket. 

“What’s your name, big boy?” I asked, clutching my billy club’s handle tightly. 

“You won’t be needing that, Boss Isbell,” a deep voice said from underneath all the hair. 

“Well, you don’t have the best track record here yet, newbie. I’ll decide what I’ll be needing and when. Now, what’s your name?” I repeated, trying to establish the fact that I was the one who was in charge. 

“Axl Rose,” he declared, then tilted his head upwards, giving it a little flick to send the hair in his eyes elsewhere. “Like the flower.” The addition to his name threw me off a little. Everything about this man threw me off a little. He didn’t look like he could have broken two noses in under a minute while cuffed. He didn’t even look like he would ever want to. If he hadn’t just been in a straight jacket, I would have said he even looked harmless. It took an insane amount of effort to remind myself that he wasn’t harmless. If he got it in his mind to take off running, he’d most likely be able to do just that, and cause some injuries along the way. 

“Well, Axl Rose, if we don’t have any more trouble from you, we’ll get along just fine. You might even get some of Lunchlady Doris’s famous spicy beans next month if you behave.” I tried to distract myself from him by continuing with my regular cut-and-pasted speech while Duff gave him a gentle shove into his cell. The door slid shut and I locked it the second it slammed into place. 

“Don’t worry about me, Boss Isbell. You run along now. Get home and get some rest. God knows you’re gonna need it.” The placid expression he had on up until then slowly morphed into a mischievous smirk and his words chilled me to the bone. That was Axl Rose the first night of my watch on D Block. And he was the first inmate I ever watched who scared me.


	2. Night Two: Feb 1- Feb 2, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t his buddy and as far as he was concerned, I was going to be an emotionless robot until I gave the order for his death...

Sleep didn’t come easily to me that morning. Not only was I still getting used to the new sleep schedule, but I was also still unnerved by our fresh meat. Something about him just made him seem like the spawn of Satan who had finally been caught and was going to meet his premature end in the electric chair. It was his eyes that scared me. They looked like they had seen things that were never supposed to be seen by mankind and they burned through his eyes and into his soul. 

I still hadn’t read the file on him. I was supposed to before my shift tonight, but in my hurry to get out of there, I forgot it on the desk. At least it gave Duff an opportunity to go over it properly. 

I pulled into the guard’s parking lot exactly 15 minutes before the start of my shift, still shaking. To avoid having vehicles stolen by escaping convicts, the parking lot for guards was about a mile away from the prison, with a shuttle making five trips within a half hour of each shift change. If you missed the last shuttle, you could either run the mile to make it to your shift on time, or wait for another half hour for the next one. It was a stupid system, but if it prevented my car from being stolen and most likely left in a ditch somewhere, then I figured I’d take it. 

I didn’t have to run at all to get to D Block, but I did anyway when I heard muffled yelling coming from inside. Once I got inside, I recognized the yelling to be the words of ‘ _Bad Bad Leroy Brown_ ’, but completely off-key and coming from solitary. Duff and Slash were just sitting around the desk, a deck or cards dealt between and seemingly ignoring the yelling. 

“Hey, what happened today?” I asked them, leaning over the desk to join the small group. 

“Fresh meat is serenading us for a while,” Slash shrugged, tossing his three of spades onto the pile between them. It wasn’t completely uncommon for inmates to sing, especially the classics, but they didn’t generally do it from solitary. Solitary was so heavily padded that it was practically soundproof. You could usually only hear what went on inside if the inmate had their mouths pressed right up against the air holes, or if you were standing within arm’s reach of the door. Yet, Axl still sung. 

“How long has he been at that?” 

“Few hours. He’s been going through every song Dad used to play on his old phonograph. ‘ _Leroy Brown_ ’ has been on repeat five times or so,” Duff tossed his final card onto the pile and stood up, yawning. “I gave Slash today’s rundown. He’ll fill you in. Try and get Tracii to talk, too. He’s been pretty quiet all day.” He gave me two pats on my shoulder before taking off his cap and starting out the door. I took off my own and scratched the back of my head a little before taking his seat. 

“So what has ol’ Leroy been up to today?” I asked Slash as I looked around the desk for the file. 

“Duff said he was trying to talk to Tracii all day, but he wouldn’t take the bait, so he started getting restless and destructive. They stuck him in there around noon and told him he could come out when he stopped making so much noise. Tracii hasn’t said a single word all day,” Slash recounted all he had heard from Duff and Steven as he stuck the cards back in their weathered box. 

“Is that a new voice I hear come to keep me company? How’s your day been, Boss Isbell?” The singing stopped as I heard Axl’s familiar deep speaking voice come back. It was insane how different his voice was when he was singing. “C’mon, you’re not gonna ignore me like everyone else here, are you?” 

I looked to Slash for suggestions of what I should do. 

“Talk to him if you want, man. Maybe it’ll get him to shut up and calm down,” he shrugged. I thought for a second, then shook my head. 

“He wants attention. It’s our job to keep them from panicking and hurting themselves. This isn’t a daycare. If we keep ignoring him, he’ll shut up and pass out eventually.” Axl resumed singing shortly after that, going from ‘ _Bad Bad Leroy Brown_ ’ to the best of Sinatra. He was off-key as fuck, but at least he had good taste in music. 

He only started to quiet down around midnight, once Slash and I were back to sitting at the desk and breaking out the carton of cigarettes after taking care of all our duties for the evening. 

“Well, I’ve been doing all of the talking lately, so why don’t one of you get the floor? Boss Isbell, what’s your favourite song?” 

“Axl, we’re not here to be your friends or your babysitters. If you don’t shut the hell up in two minutes, I’m bringing in the gag,” I threatened, trying to sound as intimidating as possible. The fucker really made it hard to try and think, and even harder to try and sound tough. He really was like a four year old, but with an obscenely deep voice. And a date with the chair. 

“Ooh, the gag? Are we gonna get into some kinky shit, Boss Isbell?” 

I sighed and sat back down, rubbing my forehead tiredly. 

“They don’t fucking pay us enough for this…” I murmured, only loud enough for Slash to hear. 

“What else can we do? No one’s ever resisted solitary like this before,” he grumbled, leaning back in his chair in defeat. 

“Is this really solitary? Or just a padded room for him to hug himself in?” I sighed and stood back up. “I’ve got an idea that may shut him up…” 

I made my way down the corridor and stood about two feet in front of the grate that allowed air to enter solitary. 

“Axl, if you wanna talk so much, just talk. I’m giving you three options here; you shut up, I go get some tranquilizers and put you to sleep, or you tell me a story from your childhood at a volume so that only I can hear. Am I making myself clear?” 

“As crystal, Boss Isbell. I’ll take the first option.” Then there was silence. For the first time all night, there was complete silence. My pounding headache started singing praises to all the deities ever conceived as I turned around and strode back up the corridor victoriously. 

“I don’t think he plans to say anything else tonight,” I smirked as I sat back down. “With luck, he’ll even sleep and we can take him out of there tomorrow morning.” 

“Are you serious? How’d you do it, man?” Slash asked, wide-eyed in disbelief. 

“Simple. Most cons in here have daddy issues and would rather clam up than open up to a guard. I told him either I get a story about little Axl and the old man, he shuts up, or I get tranquilizers.” 

“But Izz, we haven’t got tranquilizers here.” 

“Don’t tell him that,” I chuckled. “Speaking of which, we should probably order some tranquilizers. We saved enough spare change from not putting Steven on night watch with Duff last week.” 

“I’ll place the order. There’s a fuckton of timesheet spaces that you have to fill in. But don’t sign until we leave, ‘cause odds are he’s gonna start singing again,” Slash directed, picking up the receiver. 

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Slasher. We’ve had our fair share of crazies in here before, and I’ve dealt with all of them,” I chuckled, pulling out the timesheet. Until morning, the two of us filled in paperwork and struggled to place an order for tranquilizers, as security checks for the purchaser had gotten far stricter and we were now unable to order by phone. Unfortunately, they only told us that after five hours of giving them information, selecting a product, and on hold. 

By the time the sun was coming up, Slash slammed down the phone, a frenzied look in his eyes. 

“All that time waiting, and we can’t even order over the phone? We couldn’t even get a fucking box until Monday cause the locations near us aren’t open today!” 

“Easy, Slasher. Take it easy. Just go and get some breakfast and take a walk; clear your head. Come back when you’re less of a danger to yourself and others,” I murmured, ruffling his hair. He nodded slowly and stood up, pulling a cigarette from the drawer. 

“Want one? I think we both deserve a smoke break after going through that.” I shrugged and accepted the one he offered me and the light he held up between us. The second, and I mean the precise instant Slash closed the door behind him, Axl started singing again. This wasn’t obnoxious yelling of lyrics like the night before. It was gentle this time; words I didn’t recognize. Maybe it was just a song I hadn’t heard before, but I was fairly well-versed in musicians. I knew Tracii could hear it, even if he was asleep, since I could hear it all the way from the desk. 

“Hey, Axl? What song is that?” He eventually whispered in the direction of the solitary door. 

“One of my own. You’ve never heard it before. This is the first public performance. I’m sure it’d be even better if I wasn’t so tied up and could breathe properly.” He was singing to bait me. That fucker, that absolute motherfucker had given up trying to annoy me enough to get out of there, so he was trying to use guilt to get out. Tough shit. I wasn’t his buddy and as far as he was concerned, I was going to be an emotionless robot until I gave the order for his death.


	3. Night Three: Feb 2- Feb 3, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let it go, Izz. You’re only gonna get hurt if you dig too deep into this."

I woke up that afternoon, slapping myself in the face again. The fucking file. I’d forgotten the fucking file on Axl again. And if my third night shift was just as hectic as the first two, I was going to forget it again. I kept kicking myself over it during my very late breakfast and even more on the way into work. 

Getting off the shuttle, there didn’t seem to be any singing. At least, not any that I could hear from the outside. Inside, Steven and Duff had set up chairs in the middle of the corridor to form a misshapen square with Tracii serving as one corner and the solitary room door serving as the other. 

“Please Boss McKagan? You can keep him in the room, just take off the jacket so he can sing properly,” Tracii was begging from his seat on the floor of his cell, which made me recoil slightly at the thought of what every prisoner before him had done on that floor. 

“What’s this little gathering all about?” I asked, leaning against the wall behind my fellow guards. 

“Boss Isbell, Axl finally finished writing the song he was singing last night, and I like it a lot, but he can’t sing it properly cause he has to yell and he’s all tied up in there, so I’m trying to get Boss McKagan and Boss Adler to let him back into his regular cell so he can sing properly,” Tracii explained eagerly. 

“Tracii, I’ve told you once, and I’m going to tell you again; this isn’t a daycare. We aren’t here to keep you amused. If we say Axl needs time alone to calm down and think, then that’s what he gets,” I explained sternly, feeling a little guilty. It was such an innocent request, and if they weren’t on death row and under my supervision, I’d let them in a heartbeat. Especially as I watched Tracii’s hopeful expression fall into one of complete disappointment. 

“Boss Isbell, could I make an argument for Tracii’s case?” Axl suddenly said from inside the dark little room. 

“If you must, but I don’t think it’ll do any good.” 

“Well, I was put in here because I was supposedly disturbing Tracii almost three days ago. I haven’t felt my arms in at least a day, and frankly, I’m tired of trying to eat without them. Is there any real reason to keep me in here?” Duff stood up and dragged me by my wrist to the end of the corridor before I could say anything. 

“I don’t want to give it to them, cause they want it so bad, but he’s right; there’s no real reason to leave him in there. What do we do, night chief?” He murmured, keeping his voice low. I sighed, scratching the back of my head tiredly. 

“We let him out, I guess. Prison rules say that he only stays in as long as he’s being a disturbance to us and other prisoners or if he needs time to cool down. Right now, he’s cooled down for two days and being a disturbance by being in there. I say help me get him out, and then you can take off until tomorrow. I don’t know where Slash is, but him being late is cutting into our tranquilizer budget, so let’s get him out before I have to start paying you extra overtime too.” Duff chuckled and gave me a mock salute. 

“Whatever you say, chief.” Duff directed Steven to put away the chairs ( _for God’s sake, the cell is actually organized, so try and keep it that way_ ) while I unlocked solitary and grabbed Axl’s arm before he could have the chance to shimmy past me and make a break for it. I knew he wasn’t planning to, but it was all part of protocol. And also the reason none of us trusted him anyway. 

He was standing in front of the door calmly when I opened it, which left Duff and me to untie the straight jacket and unlock his leg irons before escorting him back to cell two. 

“It really is dark in there… I never noticed just how dark until I finally got carried up to the heavens by two angels of the Lord,” he murmured, combing through his matted hair with his fingers. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking us or not, but decided to leave it be for a while. 

“Alright, Axl. We’ve gotten you out, so this better be a damn nice song or else you’ve wasted everyone’s time,” Duff warned, slapping his billy club against his hand a few times, which looked more goofy than intimidating. 

“I’ll sing, but it isn’t a performance. Go about your business. I’m sure you want to get on your way home, Boss McKagan. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” There was humor in Axl’s voice, but his eyes showed nothing of it. He looked more like he was trying to burn a hole through the back of Duff’s head using his eyes. 

“And you, Boss Adler. McKagan’s been working you to the bone and Hudson’s not here to relieve you of your duties. Both of you ought to be on your way so you don’t miss the last shuttle for this shift.” 

“That’ll be enough of that,” I interrupted. “I don’t know who you think you are here, fresh meat, but you’re not the one here to be offering suggestions of where guards should go specifically so we don’t watch you.” 

“My apologies, Boss Isbell. I meant no offence by it. That’s not the way I was brought up.” I stared at him long and hard, trying to figure out the game he was playing here. Nothing about Axl was like anything I’d ever come across in a prisoner before. He wasn’t disheveled and angry, or scared. He was here so naturally, it felt like he had been born into a prison. The worst thing he had done so far was start singing badly to try and call attention to himself. Besides that, he was just testing us. Seeing how far he could push the envelope before we started pushing back. But the worst part of it all was that he was so calm about everything. He either kept his features stone-cold, or he smirked when something was pleasing him. He unerved me. 

“Just do what you have to do and then go to sleep. The both of you,” I grumbled, catching Tracii’s eyes before I made my way back up the corridor, hands trembling. Duff and Steven followed me back up, before breaking off into opposite directions. Duff clocked out before I could say anything to keep him on duty, and Steven leaned against the wall beside the desk. 

“Izzy, does the fresh meat freak you out too?” He whispered nervously. “All day today, he was acting like a complete bastard, and then as soon as you get in, he starts acting like a gentleman. It’s fucking weird as fuck.” 

“Maybe he respects my authority cause I’m the only one out of you who doesn’t look like a pompom,” I shrugged, smirking a little. I could almost hear Steven pouting behind my back. 

“I do _not_ look like a pompom,” he insisted. 

“Keep telling yourself that, O Great Pompom King.” Steven was about to retort when he was cut off by a gentle whistling from cell two. Not one that needed to be fixed, but a really sweet soft melody that was accompanied by singing. 

“Shed a tear 'cause I'm missin' you, I'm still alright to smile. Girl, I think about you every day now…” Tracii was right; the singing did sound better when he wasn’t being restrained by a straight jacket or muffled by padded walls. He sounded like he should have been on a stage performing the song, and it struck a chord inside me when I remembered that once you enter a cell at D Block, you either leave wearing a uniform, on your way to the rec yard, or to the electric chair. Axl wouldn’t get to perform the song to fans and he wouldn’t get to record it, either. And he made that choice when he… well, I wasn’t quite sure what he had done just yet. 

The file was still sitting nice and neatly on the corner of the desk with his name printed on a typewritten label sticking out the side. 

I picked it up and flipped it open to see Axl’s mug shot and personal details paperclipped to one side of the folder and the police records paperclipped to the other side. 

_Name: Rose, William Bruce Jr._

_DOB: 02/06/62_

_Received: 01/20/82_

I skipped through the personal details, only pausing long enough to notice his birthday was three days later. Maybe I could try and get him some sort of privilege. Nothing big, or the other inmates would get jealous, but at least something to commemorate the event. Maybe a small cake or something. Instead, I turned to the official police reports. There was one for every cop who had investigated his crime, and multiple pages to each. It made for a pretty hefty file. 

I pulled the first few pages out of the paper clip and passed the rest of the file to Steven for him to go through until Slash arrived. Which should have been half an hour ago. 

_At about 2am on January 10th, 1984, Rev. Stephen Bailey was awoken by a telephone call. His wife, Sharon, asked him about the caller’s identity, but learned nothing besides the fact that there was an emergency at the church the family attended and that he had to go and take care of some things. He left promptly and said nothing else. Neighbors questioned nearby heard nothing out of the ordinary that night, leaving police to assume Bailey walked to the church. Bystanders of the following events could not give full testimonies, as they only heard the noises inside from their homes. There was yelling, a gunshot, and within five minutes, the church was ablaze. Bystanders did exit their homes to try and put out the inferno, but were unsuccessful. One bystander spotted Rose running from the back exit of the church and restrained him. Rose was covered with bruises, both fresh and old, and had a few cuts and a black eye. He refused to say anything as Police interrogated everyone at the scene. Bailey’s body was not recovered from the remains of the church. Police have listed him as ‘missing, presumed dead’._

I was so engrossed in the turns of events that took place in the file that I hardly noticed Steven leaving it on the desk and Slash coming in and Axl finishing his song. Everything was dead silent and Slash was just pacing up and down the corridor when I finally looked up. 

“So you finally figured out a way to keep both of them quiet and asleep,” Slash mused when he noticed I had stopped reading. It wasn’t a question; more like a statement of disbelief. 

“It’s amazing how well prisoners cooperate when you give them what they want and be clear that you can take it away,” I shrugged, putting the report back under the paperclip. “Axl sang a song for us and then they went to sleep.” Slash blinked a few times before scratching the back of his head. 

“You… you took a prisoner out of solitary so that he could sing, and then they just both went to sleep before lights out?” 

I nodded. “If you weren’t late, you probably could have been here to see it.” 

“It’s not my fault I missed the shuttle. My fucking car wouldn’t start, so I had to take the bus up here and I shit you not, at every stop there was some old fart who got on and went to the back of the bus, then had to get off at the next stop twenty feet away. It was absolutely fucking ridiculous,” he grumbled, taking Steven’s spot as he leaned against the wall behind the desk. 

“I’ll forgive and forget this time, but it’s your responsibility to make it up to Steven. But we have more important things to worry about right now. Have you read Axl’s file yet?” 

“No. What’d he do to get in here anyway?” He asked, leaning over my shoulder to look at the report. 

“Pull up a chair. This is a hell of a case.” Slash nodded and went to retrieve a chair from cell three while I skimmed through the rest of the reports. They almost all said the same thing; that there was a call in the night, yelling and a gunshot at the church, and then a fire and all the evidence was destroyed. According to one report, it blazed so hot that there wasn’t even a gun found. Not in the church’s remains or on Axl. All that was needed to prove his innocence was a testimony, which Axl refused to give. He stayed as silent as a stone the entire time. 

“Okay, you got me here. What’s wrong with the file?” Slash asked, leaning over my shoulder again. 

“There are like five or six reports here. Not one of them conclusively proves Axl did anything wrong. He had motive and he had means, and he was the only survivor of the fire, but no one knows what actually happened in there. Only Axl does. And he hasn’t said a word to prove his innocence or his guilt,” I explained, pointing out bits and pieces of the reports. “To all the reports, it looks like all the cops think he shot his stepfather, then burned the body to cover his tracks and get rid of all the evidence.” 

“It seems pretty open and shut to me. No one saw anyone else go in or come out of the church. Why do you care anyway?” Slash shrugged, looking far less interested than he had been. 

“Can your conscience deal with knowing we put an innocent man to death? I know mine would never be able to,” I murmured, reading through the reports again. 

“Even if he didn’t do it, the only one who knows the real truth is Axl and the words of convicted killers don’t hold up too well in court. Let it go, Izz. You’re only gonna get hurt if you dig too deep into this. Just put the fucking reports away and have a smoke or something. He isn’t your best friend; he’s a convict. So fucking act like it.”


	4. Night Four: Feb 3- Feb 4, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axl paused for a second to take a breath, then looked back up at me. “Nice chatting with you, Boss Isbell. Now if you could kindly fuck off and leave me alone, you’d make this sinner very happy.”

_He isn’t your best friend. So fucking act like it._ Slash’s words kept travelling through my head the rest of the night and the next day as well. All the way until I was sitting back at the desk the next night.

It was the start of a new rotation for the night guards, so Steven was the one who was going to be spending the next few nights on D Block with me, Tracii, and Axl. He was technically on duty, but I still let him go into the break room and catch a quick nap so that he could maybe make it through the night without passing out while doing something important. It wasn’t like anyone was up to anything. 

Tracii had been sleeping better and better for the past few nights, and he didn’t cry anymore. At least, not that we heard. It was almost like having Axl on the block with him gave him a source of comfort, like he wasn’t entirely alone anymore. Not really surprising. 

From what I heard from Duff, the two of them talked most of the day. Sometimes Axl sang, but that was the most that he ever said at once. Axl preferred to listen to Tracii instead of talking about himself. Whenever Tracii did ask more personal questions, Axl waved them off. Whenever anyone asked what he did to get on the block, he’d always answer the same way: “I was charged with murder and arson,” and then change the subject. 

It bothered me that no one could get a straight answer from him, even the people who knew him best on the block. They did mention that he was an entirely different person when I was on duty. He didn’t talk as much, and he was much more polite. Even I couldn’t riddle him out. 

The night after I read the file on him, I finally decided I was gonna get through to Axl. Even if I couldn’t get him to give me a proper testimony, I could at least try and figure out some sort of motive that would give my ideas a shove in the right direction. I stood up from the desk and strode down the corridor, pausing before I reached sight of Axl. 

“Good evening, Boss Isbell. Up for a lovely night stroll?” He asked, standing up from his bed. 

“Of sorts,” I shrugged, finally stopping directly in front of his cell, about arm’s length away from the bars. “I just wanted to stop by and have a chat. We haven’t really talked since you came here.” Something I said must not have resonated well with him, because in a split second, his stoney expression shifted a little. His mouth didn’t convey fury, but his eyes did. 

“So you finally read the file on me, did you?” He murmured. 

“I did,” I nodded. “But I didn’t really come here to talk about that.” 

“Of course you did, Boss Isbell. That’s all anyone’s wanted to talk about. Why I’m here. What I did. None of them ever came down to ask if I’ve had a nice day.” 

“Did you-” 

“No. It’s been the same fucking day I’ve had for more than two weeks, and I’m fucking sick of it,” he snarled. 

“There’s no need for that kind of language on my block, Rose,” I said quietly. He was starting to overstep boundaries, and I needed to start shoving him back into them. Maybe Slash was right; he wasn’t supposed to be my friend, and I wasn’t supposed to be his. 

“That’s a damn shame, Boss Isbell. I like using these fucking words to show people just how much I’m sick of everything about this place. I’m sick of this bed, I’m sick of my desk, I’m sick of my denims, and I’m sick of all you guards. So if you just came down to tell me about how I’m going to hell for burning down a church, save your fucking breath. I’m going to hell for a fuckton of better reasons other than that. If I had just burned down a church, Lord Jesus would probably welcome me into the pearly gates himself to show how glad he is that there’s one less of these sinner houses on his beautiful Earth. It’s all bullshit.” Axl paused for a second to take a breath, then looked back up at me. “Nice chatting with you, Boss Isbell. Now if you could kindly fuck off and leave me alone, you’d make this sinner very happy.” 

He turned his back and fell onto his bed, burying his face into the hard prison pillow, his hair splayed around his head like a devilish halo. Yet, I still stood in front of the bars, dumbfounded. I hadn’t said anything about him being guilty, and when I ran over what he said, neither did he. 

“Axl, did you, or did you not burn down that church? It’s a simple question. And if your answer is what I think it’ll be, there might be a way that I can get you out of this cell. You could leave the entire prison system and actually live properly.” 

“What if I don’t want to live properly? If you get to fry me, then at least it’s not a cop-out like suicide would be. Now fuck off, Boss Isbell. I’m not in the mood to answer any more of your shitty questions.” 

I sighed and started back up the corridor. If he wasn’t going to talk, then he wasn’t going to talk. I wished he would talk, but I couldn’t force him to. I sat down behind the desk and pulled the file out again. Maybe there was something I had missed when I was reading it last night. Maybe there was something that would make his words make sense… 

_Victims: Rev Stephen Bailey_

His stepfather was a preacher… Preachers would definitely instill a fear of God and the afterlife into their children. Maybe a fear big enough that they were scared of what happens to those who take their own lives… 

I sighed and closed the file before shoving it back into the bottom drawer where it belonged. There was something about this case that didn’t quite make sense. Nothing was adding up, and I was still expected to sit idly by while giving the order for Axl to get cooked. And he seemed fine with it. He wasn’t in denial like Tracii had been. He almost sounded like he was the biggest endorser of the whole thing. It wasn’t uncommon for prisoners to just want their lives to be over with after spending the bulk of it behind bars, but Axl was still basically a kid. Granted, already a few months older than me, but he still lived at home, as far as I could gather. He’d be the youngest person to have ever gotten the chair at Mt Brownstone. A notable event, but definitely not one I wanted to commemorate. 

I grabbed two cigarettes and a lighter from the top drawer and made my way to the break room to wake Steven up. Which wasn’t too difficult, I found, considering he had a dog-eared issue of Playboy in hand and a Twinkie sticking out of the side of his mouth. 

“I thought you came in here to nap.” 

“I did. I napped and I dreamt about centerfolds and Twinkies. Check it out, Izz; my dream came true!” He grinned, taking a bite out of the cake as he turned around the magazine to reveal a model lying on a fluffy rug. 

“You just had two shifts off for the rotation. I think you’ve spent enough time in here,” I sighed, snatching the Playboy out of his hands. 

“Oh, Izz, you break my heart. What’s there to do on the night shift anyway? Everyone’s asleep and Duff and Slash already took care of all the paperwork this morning, so what does it matter what I’m up to?” He yawned, nibbling the end of his Twinkie. 

“Because it’s the job of the night guards to look over files and actually pay some fucking attention to what the cons are doing. Since that’s what I was doing, I found something that could actually be pretty big.” 

“Yeah? Like what?” I grasped his hand and pulled him off the couch in one tug. 

“Get your ass out here and see. You know Tracii isn’t supposed to be left alone.” 

“Well, who’s fucking fault is that?” He murmured as we walked back to the desk. 

“Yours,” I grumbled. Now fucking sit.” Steven grated on my nerves sometimes with his lazy attitude towards the night shift. He was like Slash, but far more whiny. 

“I think Axl’s innocent,” I explained, pulling out the file from the drawer again. 

“Why’s that? What’d he do, anyway? The best I can find out is that he got charged for murder and arson.” Steven leaned in closer to the file. 

“Charged for it. Nothing in any of the reports say he actually committed murder or arson. They just charged him for it because he was the only one seen coming out of the scene of the crime and refuses to say anything about it to anyone. Not even me.” 

“A guilty tongue never talks,” Steven shrugged, standing up again in disinterest. 

“I thought the saying was ‘innocent until proven guilty’.” 

“Who said it was a saying? I just know that if I wasn’t responsible, I’d say so. Especially if I was going to get done away for if I didn’t. Why do you care anyway?” I sighed and stood up, starting to pace. 

“Am I the only one on this block who has any morals at all?” I grumbled. 

“The rest of us have morals. Our morals are just different than yours. Plus, we aren’t gay for the inmates.” Steven’s words caused me to pause and whirl around back to him. 

“What’d you say?” 

“I said we, as in, Slash, Duff and me, aren’t gay for Axl like you are,” he shrugged. “You’ve already cost me ten bucks on the matter. If you admit it tonight, I’ll get twenty back.” I blinked a few times before rubbing my temples in exhaustion. 

“Steven, I’m not gay for Axl,” I declared. “I hardly know him.” 

“I don’t even know Justine Greiner, but I know I’m straight for her. What’s the difference here?” 

“One’s a playmate and the other is a convict. Plus Axl is a guy.” I could tell I was starting to blush, but I needed to keep it under control before word spread to the entire prison that the night chief on D Block blushed over a con. “We’ve all seen how you look at him. Like you two are fucking Romeo and Juliet or some shit like that. And he looks at you the same way when your back is turned. Like he wants to declare his undying love for you but fate has kept you apart.” Steven was using his mocking voice now and it was really getting under my skin. 

“I’m not gay for a con, and he’s not gay for me,” I insisted, trying to seem tough. Didn’t work on Steven; he’d seen my act before. 

“Go make out with him or something. If you do before the end of the week, Duff is a hundred in the hole!” He grinned victoriously. 

“I can’t fucking believe you all bet on me and Axl hooking up. What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” My tough look wasn’t an act anymore, and I think Steven could sense it. 

“Cause we all see it. It’s so fucking obvious and I don’t see how you don’t,” he declared, trying to seem as tough as me. 

“I don’t want you to gamble on my love life anymore. Especially over things that’ll never happen. I’m not going to hook up with Axl, and we’re not going to fall in love like Romeo and Juliet. I’m gonna let him make his own decisions, because he’s a grown man and if he doesn’t want to talk, sucks for him cause I’m gonna fry him if that’s what the court decides.”


	5. Night Five: Feb 4- Feb 5, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In my panic, I ran down the corridor to look into his cell, but found nothing except an unmade bed and the standard desk that was in each D Block cell.
> 
> “You won’t find him in there. He’s not gonna be back.”

The next day, the court decided upon something; a reopened case I hadn’t been informed of and didn’t know about until I clocked in the next day to find Duff pacing back and forth in front of the desk, smoking like a chimney. 

“Izzy! Thank fuck you’re here!” He grinned, running over and grabbing my shoulders the second he spotted me. “I gotta go take care of Tracii. There’s a letter on your desk. Steven’s with Slash, so don’t worry.” Before I could get a word in edgewise, he was running out the door jubilantly. He had spoken so fast, that I only caught the odd word, but I did hear something about a letter and Tracii and Duff having to go take care of him. Something had to be wrong. 

In my panic, I ran down the corridor to look into his cell, but found nothing except an unmade bed and the standard desk that was in each D Block cell. 

“You won’t find him in there. He’s not gonna be back.” Axl was lying on his bed, hands behind his head as he watched me. 

“What happened? Where is he?” I asked, approaching cell two. 

“He’s gone off to be a free bird. To fly away and live life uncaged and uncrispy. Just like how you want me to be so bad,” he murmured, smirking a little. I felt the blush start to crawl across my cheeks. 

“Tracii got out? Why so close to his DOE?” 

“They don’t tell me more than the basics, Boss Isbell. You’re gonna have to riddle that one out for yourself.” It seemed like Axl was back to his old self instead of whatever I had seen the night before. I turned away and strode back up to the desk before he could see me blushing. I couldn’t help but look at him and remember the bets everyone had been making on me whenever I looked at him now. It was going to be the death of me. 

There was indeed a letter on the desk, opened and tossed to the side. I sat down and picked it up, noticing the official stamp and Warden Burke’s signature. 

_“Be it known that on this day, the fourth day of February, 1984, the charges against Tracy Ulrich have been repealed. Said convict is now charged with manslaughter and ordered to serve one (1) year at Mt Brownstone Penitentiary, as of the second day of January, 1984. Signed, Warden T. H. Burke.”_

I read over the letter twice, a small grin forming. It only got bigger when I saw the note scribbled onto the back of the sheet. Notes on the back weren't legally part of the letter, meaning this one was purely for the recipient. __

_“And not a second too soon. Get someone off their shift so HR will stop crawling up my ass to give you D Blockers a day off once in a while.”_

Looked like Steven got the day off he’d been wanting. 

“Finished reading yet, Boss Isbell? What’s going on?” I chuckled and folded up the letter, sticking it into the bottom drawer of the desk. 

“Tracii’s no longer a murderer. He’s charged with manslaughter. And he’s served his time here.” 

“So I guess it’s just you and me until Boss Adler gets back for his shift,” Axl sounded amused by the fact. And he was almost right. 

“Fortunately, no. Unless precisely ordered by Warden Burke, I’m not authorized to assign more guards to a shift if there’s only one prisoner on the block. It’s just you and me until you fry or get a roommate.” Two could play at whatever game Axl was trying to play with me. It was my turn to get him blushing uncomfortably. 

“You sound pleased, Boss Isbell. Have you been looking forward to get some alone time with your secret lover?” He purred. I could tell by the creaking of the old bed springs that he had stood up and was probably trying to watch me through the bars of his cell door. 

“No, but I have been looking forward to talking with the last inmate on my block to see if I can get him out too and take a vacation.” 

“Aw, do we have to? I was so looking forward to feeling your sweet, soft cherry lips against mine.” I could practically hear him pouting petulantly from inside his cell. Making him blush was proving to be harder than I thought. It was almost like he wasn’t playing a game… 

“Not yet. Kissing you before the seventh would get Boss McKagan a hundred in the hole, and he pisses me off less than Boss Adler and Hudson.” 

“I can appreciate that. Too bad I can’t get a sweet birthday kiss from my favourite guard. You know, you’re the only one I’ve ever had who hasn’t tried to break my fingers yet.” Break his fingers? This was news. I picked up the desk chair and dragged it down the middle of the corridor to cell two, where Axl was indeed pressed up against the bars. 

“Take a seat,” I gestured to his bed son he wouldn’t be so much higher up than me while we talked. He did as I said, sitting politely cross-legged on his blankets. “Now, what do you mean by trying to break your fingers?” 

“Exactly what I said. They didn’t like what I was doing, so they tried to crush my fingers with their batons. Boss McKagan got really mad after ‘Leroy Brown’ and all my singing. And before it, too. Every time I tried to sing again, he’d be right there, trying to slam my fingers on the bars. I don’t think he likes me too much. Not like you do, Boss Isbell,” he explained, fluttering his eyelashes at me at the end. 

“Axl, my interest in you is purely for moral’s sake. I couldn’t forgive myself if I sent you to the chair when you didn’t deserve it.” 

“Didn’t sound like it last night. Sounded more like you’d rather I go to the chair,” he shrugged, a twinge of hurt in his voice. 

“No. I don’t want anyone to go to the chair unless they deserve it,” I started slowly. “Last night, I wanted Steven to fry in the chair. I wasn’t mad at anyone except him.” 

“Because they were making bets about you, or because you’re in denial?” He asked, leaning forward. 

“I’m not in denial about anything.” 

“Denial of denial is one of the first signs of denial,” he chuckled. “You like me, don’t you, Boss Isbell?” I sighed and moved my chair forward. 

“Axl, I want you to listen, and listen well, because I’m not going to say this again. I’m not gay. I’m not gay for you or any other man on this planet. I’m not going to kiss you, and I’m not going to hook up with you. I don’t find you attractive, and it’ll make the time you have left here easier if you accept that right now.” Axl's expression never changed while I was explaining my feelings. If anything, his cocky smirk got bigger. 

“Would you like to hear what I think, Boss Isbell?” He asked quietly. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. 

“Sure, Axl. Tell me what you think.” 

“I think you're in denial about your feelings about me for the same reasons I'm trying to get you to admit them,” he shrugged. “Because it's a sin.” 

“There are no fucking feelings,” I growled. “You're just as bad as the others.” 

“You don't want to admit it because you were brought up in a household just like mine. Where men had to be men and women had to be under us,” he continued, like he hadn't even heard what I said. “I think I'm not the first man you've made goo-goo eyes over and I won't be the last. You just won't let yourself admit it because Daddy beat the sin out of you when he found out. Bullseye, right?” I bit my lip and looked down in shame. Just like I had seven years before… 

_Mom shipped us off to Dad’s house a few months after my fifteenth birthday, just like she did every summer. He didn’t live too far away, in case we had to go home for an emergency, but it was just far enough that all our friends couldn’t come up by themselves. So to pass the time we pranced around town and tried to find different friends. Ones we could see in the summer, then never again._

_As far as I could tell, in the little town, almost village, Dad lived in there was only one kid who had any amount of real pot instead of oregano. The town delinquent. I had the memory repressed so far, I don’t even remember his name anymore._

_Pothead was 17, which seemed like a really cool older age. He had really wild, untamed hair and a genuine leather jacket. The way he terrified everyone in his path sorta reminded me of Alice Cooper. The coolest thing about him was his car. He had an old Mustang that he had fixed up himself, which included a fucking sick paint job: everything the bible said about Hell was depicted in exquisite detail. Maybe too detailed for a car. Suffice to say, we spent a lot of time together that summer._

_I’d wake up at dawn, grab an apple or something from the fridge, then he’d be waiting outside for me, windows rolled down, hair fluffed up, a fresh bag of weed in the glove compartment and Zeppelin coming out of the speakers. I’d climb into the passenger side and he’d be sure to burn a little rubber before driving down the road at top speed._

_It was around the middle of July when I started noticing little things he did, like blushing whenever I took off my shirt to go swimming, or touching me a lot whenever we went to our place on the outskirts of town to smoke. I didn’t stop him. Sometimes I’d even get closer to let him do it easier. On one or two occasions, I’d touch him back._

_One day, we were sitting really close together, arms almost brushing against each other, and he asked me: “Izz, who was your first kiss?” In a spur-of-the-moment decision, I leaned forward and quickly touched my lips to his._

_“You,” I whispered. He chuckled a little and took a final drag of his cigarette before stomping it out._

_“That wasn’t a kiss…” He leaned in closer and held my face gently. “This is.”_

_His lips felt rough, but he was gentle with me. He didn’t go any further unless I gave him a sign to do so, eventually spreading my lips and sneaking his tongue into my mouth. I could taste the cigarettes on him, but there was something else… Whiskey? The rest of the memory is a blur. He still dropped me off that evening and picked me up the next morning. Kissing was just an eventual new part to our daily routine. He’d give me a secret little peck like the one I gave him before we drove off every morning and it wasn’t long before we started trying to push the envelope._

_Whenever we were well-secluded, his hands started to wander around my body, and mine over his. He was a little taller than me, but we were built the same way; mostly skin and bones. Eventually, shirts were discarded and kisses wandered over collarbones and torsos, getting lower and lower with each passing day. On the final week of my summer vacation, I was still trying to get the courage to say goodbye to my sorta-boyfriend._

_I woke up at dawn and grabbed an apple, as I always did, but he wasn’t waiting outside. The only person who was on the driveway was Dad, who was standing there with his belt bunched up in one hand. He only ever took off his belt for two reasons: to shit, or to beat the shit out of someone. That morning, he had it off for the second reason. He told me to get my ass back inside, and when I refused, he came running, belt poised to strike. Which he did. Multiple times. The leather cut my skin in various places and the buckle gave matching bruises. He yelled curses at me before every lash, and only when I was crying and cowering and begging for mercy, did he stop with the belt and instead told me that fags weren’t welcome in his house and that if I ever stepped onto his property again, he’d castrate me._

He shipped me back home within the hour, and I never heard from anyone who lived in that village again, save for Dad. Mom forced us to make up over the phone, but I haven’t seen him since. Dad told her everything that happened, and she gave me the same speech, but without the castration and the curses. Only that fags were an abomination and that she wouldn’t tolerate one living under her roof. I liked Mom a lot, and she was cool about a lot of things, but she never approved of the sex, drugs and rock n roll. 

“Well, Boss Isbell? Am I right or not?” I was so caught up in the memory, I practically forgot Axl was still waiting for an answer. 

“You’re wrong,” I declared, my voice unstable. 

“You hesitated!” He grinned, victoriously. “Got any scars from it? I know I do. A big nasty one in the middle of my back.” 

“There are no scars,” I glared at him venomously to try and get him to drop the subject. 

“There must be. To get the sin beat out of you, there must be a few scars. How old were you when it happened?” I sighed and stood up. 

“I'll be willing to talk as soon as you're a free man or you've got a week left to live. Not a second sooner.” 

“I'm not dropping it. Cause the sooner you admit it, the sooner I get to kiss you. You'll have to gag me to get me to shut up, Boss Isbell.” 

“I'm not opposed to the idea,” I grumbled as I pulled the chair back up the D Block corridor. 

“I'll get you to admit it tomorrow night. Mark my words, Izzy. Tomorrow night.”


	6. Night Six: Feb 6- Feb 7, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’ve come up with an idea that’ll benefit the two of us,” I explained, taking my own seat.  
> “Yeah? Let me hear it.”

It didn’t take long for Axl to get bored and go to sleep. According to Duff and Slash, he didn’t say anything during the day either. Only scribbled on a piece of paper on his desk all day. He only ate when threatened with having to skip meals and only looked up from his work the second he heard me coming in. Slash was out of the door without so much as a “hello”. Duff stayed long enough for a pat on the back and a suggestion: 

“Try and talk to him. Last time I heard about someone writing this much and saying this little, they went on a murderous rampage.” I blinked a few times in surprise before turning towards his retreating back. 

“Writing? Writing what?” 

“Probably another song for his secret lover,” he chuckled before closing the door behind him. 

“Boss Isbell? Is it time for the night shift already?” Axl called from his cell. 

“8:03pm, Axl. Your nightly babysitter has arrived.” Instead of sleeping, I had been spending my day trying to figure out how to break through to him. It wasn’t entirely clear to me why I cared so much about his future. Some moments, I couldn’t give less of a shit, and others, it was my top priority. I didn’t understand my infatuation with the case. Maybe it was because Axl reminded me of myself, or maybe it was because he reminded me of that old flame from long ago… 

I pulled the desk chair down the corridor again, cursing myself for not lifting it and probably scratching it worse before I stopped in front of cell two, where Axl was sitting and smiling. It wasn’t a smirk or a victorious grin; it was ‘I’m happy to see you’ and ‘long time, no see’ and ‘I’ve missed you, buddy’. 

“I think I’ve come up with an idea that’ll benefit the two of us,” I explained, taking my own seat. 

“Yeah? Let me hear it.” 

“A quid pro quo. You want to know my past, and I want to know yours. I’ll ask you questions, you answer them truthfully to the best of your abilities, and then I’ll do the same. Sound fair?” Axl nodded slowly, cautiously. 

“Like ‘Truth or Dare’ without the daring? I suppose that’d be alright,” he shrugged. “Lay them on me, Boss Isbell.” I pulled the chair closer and leaned forward, keeping steady eye contact with him. 

“Did you burn the church?” 

“Yes. Are you gay?” 

“No. Did you murder your stepfather?” 

“No. Have you ever been gay or attracted to men?” 

“Yes. How did he die?” 

“He tried to shoot me, but missed and shot his own foot. I ran into a candle and knocked it over. Tell me about your gay experimentation.” There it was; the question I knew he was going to ask. I didn’t want to answer it, but a deal was a deal. 

“I was fifteen. He was seventeen and I met him the summer I spent at my Dad’s house in a small village in fucking nowhere. We hung out every day and we grew attracted to each other. After about two months, Dad found out and beat me with his belt, then shipped me back to Mom’s. I never heard from the guy again. He probably got beat too,” I sighed and rubbed my face a little to try and regain my composure. “Why didn’t you tell the police it was an accident?” 

“Cause I didn’t want to. Which base did you get to?” 

“Third. Why not?” 

“Not sure. Have you ever wanted to do anything with anybody else?” 

“Yes.” My answer seemed to throw Axl back as much as it shocked me to admit it. But it was the truth; no getting away from it. “Why were you and him at the church that late?” 

“Because I called him to meet me there. If there were no bars between us, and I leaned forward to kiss you, would you kiss me back?” 

“Do you mean that literally or metaphorically?” I asked him a question out of turn to try and buy myself time. The truth of the matter was that I had no idea what the answer was, and until I figured out what it was, he wasn’t going to leave me alone. All the questions… all the memories that had come back since meeting him… I didn’t know how I was going to deal with them. 

“If I was the guy you met that summer, would you have kissed me then?” There was something in his eyes when I stared at him through the bars. Something that was both familiar and new. The rest of his face showed nothing but the seriousness that he always carried about him. But those blue eyes begged me to say yes. Begged me with all they had. 

“Ask me the same question tomorrow,” I sighed. “I’ll have decided by then.” Axl deflated visibly and nodded a little. 

“Okay,” he whispered, turning around to lay back on his bed. “Fun game, Boss Isbell. Maybe we can play again tomorrow night. I’m feeling a little tired right now. Goodnight.” And just like that, he had decided that he was done talking to me. 

I stood from my chair and started dragging it up the corridor before I stopped and turned back for a moment. 

“I lied… To you and to myself. I don’t think I was ever straight,” I murmured, biting my lip in shame. With every next step I took up the corridor, I felt the belt against my back, and every breath made my ears ring with the hatred Dad had for me that day, and probably still held when I admitted it to Axl on D Block. Now all I needed was an answer to his question. 

Would I have kissed him? I didn’t know. Perhaps, if it was his Mustang I had climbed into every day, and it was his weed I smoked around the town limits, and it was him I was sitting way too close to, but that wasn’t him. He was someone from long ago, not Axl Rose. Axl was a convict who made me feel nervous and sweaty and ill-at-ease and excited to be around; all at the same time. 

_Holy fuck, the fucker made me fall for him…_


	7. Night Seven: Feb 6- Feb 7, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I asked him how many times you made him his bitch. It was a fucking joke,” Steven shrugged, lifting the ice pack back up to his face.  
> “You're lucky I don't make both sides match."

I wanted to take personal leave the next night. I knew exactly what the answer to his question was, but not a single cell of my body wanted to admit it out loud. I knew if I showed up, he’d get me to say it somehow. He’d hypnotise me against my will and I’d end up blurting out an entire passage from Romeo and Juliet or something. I’d sing like a fucking canary. 

No one wanted to take my place. Duff and Steven were both tired from working all day, and Slash was just being lazy and taking full advantage of his first shift off in a long time. I couldn’t blame him. The crowdedness of the rest of the prison made for a shortage of guards, and the lack of funds to support them all couldn’t afford to hire another guard. So we would take whatever off time we could and happily relish the good pay. For doing next to nothing, it really was good pay. Especially if it was only for one inmate. 

Unfortunately, that one inmate made me feel nine shades of confused. About myself, my past, and the future. I hated him, but I also didn’t like being away from him. He wasn’t my enemy, but the way he acted didn’t make me feel like he was my friend, either. He was trying to seduce me with his constant questions and sultry looks. 

Be that as it may, not one of the other D Block guards would budge an inch for me. They wouldn’t even buy the ‘family emergency’ card. So I suited up and I made my way through the constricting mountains surrounding Mt Brownstone, just like every other evening for the past week. 

As the shuttle pulled up to the D Block stop, a sudden thought struck me: 

_It’s Axl’s birthday today. He’s older than me and I still see him as a little kid._

He was inevitably going to ask me for a birthday kiss, and if my feelings between the start of my shift and the time he asked me didn’t change, I wasn’t sure how I’d respond to the request. Everything about him fucked me up. I shoved my key into the lock of the D Block doors and shuffled inside, wondering if I looked like I had had as little sleep as I felt. 

“Hey Izz! Sorry I couldn’t take over your shi- Fuck, you look awful, man,” Duff had started towards me, then probably noticed the growing bags under my eyes. 

“Thanks, Duffy. Just the confidence boost I needed tonight,” I yawned, scratching the back of my head. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just… you look like you haven’t slept in a week.” 

“I feel like I haven’t. I just can’t sleep. I stay up thinking all day and it fucks me over at night. Anything go on today?” 

“More than you want to know. The toilet in Axl’s cell is fucked up, so he asked Steven to take him to the guard’s bathroom, and he must’ve said something, cause Axl came out with fists flying. Stevie’s got a black eye from it, but I think he’s just lucky he doesn’t have some sort of major head injury. He stayed long enough to get Axl in solitary, but I think he’s in the break room now, clearing out our supply of Twinkies,” Duff explained, looking almost more excited than sorry that they had to lock the only convict on Block in solitary. It was a rarity, but sometimes the inmates just needed some alone time in the straight jacket. 

“What the fuck did Steven say, anyway? Axl’s been so calm while I watched him lately. He hasn’t done anything all that boisterous since ‘Leroy Brown’,” I asked, trying to wake up as best I could. 

“I think he said something about you and him being secret lovers. Not sure. I was trying to get a closer look at cell two’s toilet while he was gone. And Steven didn’t say much while we got Axl in the jacket. He was kinda muttering and Axl was just screaming and trying to beat the living piss out of him. If you wanna know, just go ask Steven. I wanna get home.” I nodded and patted him on the back. 

“Sleep well, McKagan.” He gave me a mock salute before turning to run outside and catch the shuttle back to the parking lot. Axl was being silent from inside solitary, so he was either sulking or hadn’t heard me yet. 

_Thank fuck for that._

From the break room window, I could see Steven gently massaging his cheek and eye with an ice pack with the box of Twinkies and a few discarded wrappers laying on the coffee table in front of him. It looked painful, no doubt about it, but if Axl had punched him that hard, there had to be a damn good reason behind it. 

“Hey, Steven,” I greeted him with a nod as I entered the break room, still trying to decide how I was going to reprimand him. Both parties were at fault here, but I had authority to yell at one of the guards on my block. 

“That crazy motherfucker you’re in love with tried to kill me!” He immediately screamed, dropping the ice pack to show off his bruises. 

“Don’t play the angel here, Adler. Axl hasn’t done anything to hurt anyone here since he got on the block. You antagonized him somehow, so give me the whole goddamn truth here, would you?” All I had to do here was keep calm, and eventually, he’d give me the whole story. 

“Sure, take his side. You’ve known me two years and him a fucking week, but I guess since you’re not gay for me, I don’t get any special treatment, right?” 

“I’m not gay for him. At the moment, I hate you both equally. So what the fuck did you say?” He was taking this too far. There was an underlying issue here, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. 

“I asked him how many times you made him his bitch. It was a fucking joke,” Steven shrugged, lifting the ice pack back up to his face. 

“You're lucky I don't make both sides match. I've told you already to cut that shit out,” I growled, tugging him towards me by the collar. 

“What, so you can't take a fucking joke either? Go on, hit me, you fag. Fucking hit me, or does your husband keep your balls in his back pocket?” 

I wanted to. Holy fuck, I wanted to beat the rest of the living piss out of him. But I couldn't. It'd cost me my job on the spot and they'd hire someone new to replace me within days, who wouldn't care that Axl probably didn't deserve the chair. Maybe some time, but not the chair. So I let Steven go. 

“Get the hell out of here. One more fucking word about it, and I tell Burke about all the time you’ve been wasting in here looking at naked chicks,” I whispered, using every ounce of restraint I had not to hit him as hard as Axl did or harder. The threat seemed to ring true with him, because he grabbed the box of Twinkies and his ice pack and nearly ran out of the room. I didn’t move from my spot until I heard the door to the outside close and the deadbolt lock. He was gone and he wouldn’t be back until eight the next morning. By then, I hoped Slash would have shown up and finally given Duff his own day off. I wouldn’t get one until it was time to change the night chief. 

_I think I deserve a smoke after dealing with something like that._

It took more time than usual, but I shuffled to the seat behind the desk, where the pack of cigs was strewn haphazardly and half empty. Duff had probably had a couple after getting Axl into solitary and Steven always liked to steal a couple whenever he was in charge of putting it away. But I wasn’t going to think of Steven again and get even more riled up. I was going to treat myself and relax for a while before doing the actual job I was payed to do. 

Duff had forgotten to sign the timesheet, as per usual, which left me with one extra matter to attend to after the daily paperwork of who checked which cells to see which ones needed maintenance and repair. And of course, keeping an eye on Axl. He still hadn’t said anything, which meant he must have been sulking or asleep, although the latter seemed less likely, given that the break room is in no way soundproof. Muffled a little, but whoever built D Block knew that the night guards were going to want to spend some time with themselves in ways that went against prison regulations. 

After lighting the cigarette between my teeth, I stood up, stretching my arms over my head before I made my way down the corridor, feeling more confident than I had in awhile. Everything was eerily quiet until I reached the door of solitary. 

“Axl, are you awake?” I whispered, tapping twice on the heavy metal door. 

“Do I have an answer other than yes?” His voice came from the darkened room on the other side. He sounded defeated, and he had reason to. Once you’ve lost all your gusto and pride, solitary starts shrinking in on you. 

“Not in this case,” I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood in the room a little. 

“Boss Adler doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like me because I like you and because you like me,” he murmured sadly. 

“At this point, I think he doesn’t like you cause you gave him the worst beating of his life. He’s just using prejudices as an excuse to try and save his pride. Do you want to talk about it?” I could hear him moving around a little inside the padded room. Probably trying to stand up from the floor, which was harder than it sounded while wearing a straight jacket. 

“I want to talk to him about it. I want my fist to talk to his face about it,” he grumbled. His voice was clearer; he must have stood up. 

“Well, he’s gone and won’t be back until morning. So you’re stuck with me until eight. I hope I’ll make an okay substitute,” I offered. I was trying my best to be welcoming and friendly, which already wasn’t my strong suit, but it was feeling forced and awkward this time around. 

“Of course I’d rather talk with you. I’d prefer you over that fuck knuckle any day.” 

“Then maybe you can tell me what happened, exactly. Steven gave me his side of the story, but I want to hear yours. I want to be completely unbiased when I kick his ass into next week. Other blocks may treat the inmates as scum, but I don’t tolerate it here. He had no fucking right to say what he did.” 

“He asked me how many times I made you my bitch. I just...I lost it. I lose it so much, it’s a wonder I still have it at all. I lost it right before I made the call to dear old Reverend Bailey, which I guess is why I made it. I’m trying to learn to keep it under control, but it’s just so goddamn hard when someone rubs me the wrong way. He rubs me the wrong way to begin with, and when he just said that… I completely lost my fucking head. I didn’t mean to hit him, Boss Isbell. But I sure as fuck don’t regret it. Maybe he can see how it feels to get your ass handed to you on a daily basis just for existing.” 

“Is that what happened to you?” I asked softly. “Is that why you made the call?” The solitary room went eerily quiet. 

“Boss Isbell, I trust you. You know that, right?” He whispered. 

“I do now.” 

“I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve been trying so hard to get me to give you a solid answer, and I just back away. It’s my own fault I’m in here, both the block and this room, and if I knew everything was going to change when I told the truth, I’d have screamed it from the roof. But things aren’t going to change for me. Best case scenario, I get pardoned. But then where do I go? My mom was happy to see me get locked up. My siblings don’t know where I am, or if I’m alive. Even if they did know, I don’t think they’d care. They’re better off not having me around to drag them down to my level. I’m better off on D Block. At least I can spend the rest of my life with someone I trust.” I had to bite my lip hard to keep from tearing up. 

“Axl, what you did doesn’t merit the electric chair. You didn’t kill anyone and the fire was an accident. All you have to do is fill in the rest of the blanks, and you can get out, and I can maybe help you get back on your feet,” I said slowly, trying not to get his hopes up. 

“You don’t have to do that for me, Boss Isbell. I’m no good to society, so why waste space on me?” 

“Do you really believe that?” I asked quietly, hoping he didn’t give the answer I was expecting him to. 

“I wish I didn’t,” he sighed. “Birthdays haven’t been my best day for keeping an up attitude. ‘ _Another year gone, one closer to your death,_ ’ as daddy dearest would tell me. I’m better off cooking. That way I’m not a waste of space anymore.” 

“You’re not a waste of space. You had your reasons for it. I don’t know how valid they are, but judging by what I know about you, I think they might hold up in court,” I murmured. 

“Boss Isbell, no offence, but what you know about me isn’t the truth. I’ve never been this nice for this long since I learned how to talk,” he chuckled. 

“Well, why are you being this nice? There has to be reason for it, right?” I tried to keep nudging him in the right direction bit by bit. 

“I don’t really know… I think it’s because of you. Right off the bat, you reminded me of someone, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to act to get you to like me. So I tried everything. Maybe I didn’t try the right things, but I really did try to get you to not see me as the enemy like how all other guards do. I don’t give a flying fuck about them. I just really wanted to be on your good side,” he paused a second and chuckled. “I guess I just wanted to be in this exact position, except not in a straight jacket, and not in solitary. Besides Boss Adler, this has actually been one of my best birthdays.” I thought for a second before responding. 

“Why did you want me to like you so much?” I asked cautiously. If I pushed too hard too fast, he’d get scared and back away. 

“I’m not sure… There was just something about you… This vibe, almost. Like you knew where I was coming from and you came from the same place. I guess in the last week, my desperation to have your approval went too far. I got obsessed with the thought. That thought… I guess it grew into something else while I waited all day, every day, for you to come back. If you want me to back off, I will. I just wanted to let you know before I fried.” He wasn’t giving me half-answers anymore, which really made the whole thing a lot easier. 

“Axl, I have something I want to give you for your birthday, but I don’t want you to get any ideas from it. Cause when I give you one of them, it’ll be tricky to give you another. Am I making myself clear?” 

“As crystal, Boss Isbell.” I took a deep breath and shoved my key into the solitary room door. This was it; no turning back. I swung open the door and stepped inside just enough to be right in front of Axl before I leaned down and kissed him. He let out a small squeak of surprise, but he didn’t resist at all. My skills were probably a little rusty from not being used in so long, but I still remembered my first kiss with my old flame and tried to mimic it as best I could. Gentle touches, holding his face close to mine so that we couldn’t break apart until I let go. But I didn’t want to. His lips were baby-soft and molded to mine perfectly, like they were made for me. 

It only lasted a few seconds before I let go, but I could tell he wanted more, and I wanted to give him more. I just couldn’t… I backed away a step, panting quietly. 

“Axl, that was the only one… I can’t give you another…” I murmured, feeling my voice crack. 

“No… no, Izzy. Just for tonight… tonight forget that I should be behind bars. Just forget for a little while…” he begged. 

“We need to stop now while we still can. I’m scared that if I give you another, I won’t be able to hold back. You have to understand…” Axl nodded slowly and backed away from me until he hit the padded back wall. “But I know now… If you were the guy I met that summer, I would have kissed you. I would have kissed you a lot, and for a long time. I know this isn’t the best birthday present ever, but-” 

“It was,” Axl interrupted. “The best one I’ve ever had. More than I could have asked for. Thank you, Izzy.” I could still see the whites of his eyes when I looked into them, and I could see the reflections of moisture from the lights of the D Block corridor. 

“You don’t have to thank me, Axl. It was my pleasure.” I backed out even further before closing the solitary room door. I didn’t want to keep him in there, but rules were rules. Hitting a guard was at least 24 hours in solitary, unless there were extreme circumstances. 

Once the door was closed, I didn’t move for a few minutes. Half of me was telling me that I fucked up by kissing him and I should go back to my desk immediately. The other half was saying that I fucked up by not kissing him a second time and I should reopen solitary immediately. So while they battled, I stood and stared at the door. It felt like my old flame was behind the door, and all I had to do was open it to let him back into my life. But he didn’t have a face lost to time anymore. It was Axl’s face. It was his face that I wanted to spend every day with. He’d taken over my heart, and I still wasn’t sure how. Eventually, the logical half of me won and I started back towards the desk. 

I picked up the pace when I noticed an envelope in the incoming basket. Had it always been there? It might have come in while I was in solitary with Axl, which meant someone had been in here and not seen a guard anywhere. 

_Shit, shit, SHIT!_

I started running and didn’t stop until I had snatched the envelope from the basket and clawed it open. It had the state seal on the top and Axl’s mugshot on the bottom with big thick letters above it; “ **Date Of Execution: February 13, 1984.** ” 

Axl’s DOE had finally arrived… and he had less than a week to live.


	8. Night Eight: Feb 7- Feb 8, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ll always remember his last words, no matter how many times I try and forget:  
> “Hell waits for you, Isbell!”

I spent the rest of that day feeling numb. Hardly anything actually made an impression in my head, and I was just going through the motions like a robot. Eight came and went, as did I. By the time I was actually registering things that were happening, I was lying in bed, curtains drawn to block out the early morning sunlight. 

That was the thing about the night shift… you missed the days, but you got to see the sunrise and the sunset without sleeping through it. Not that I would have noticed even if I had seen it. 

The shock of having Axl’s DOE so close… Nothing could compare to it. I thought we would have a month together, at least. Maybe if it were just a week later… I hadn’t told him about it yet. I was supposed to as soon as I got it. 

That was the one right that all guards agreed inmates still had, no matter their crime. They deserved to know when their last day was going to be. As well as the other guards on the block. 

I had taken the DOE with me and stuck it in my uniform pocket so I could have time to process it by myself first. It was a selfish thing to do, and I regretted it as soon as I realized I still had it with me. I guess I just wanted to be the one who told Axl. 

Slash and Duff didn’t quite have the light touch required to properly deliver the news, and Steven would just take delight in telling him. And me. 

I decided as soon as I took the DOE out of my pocket and placed it on my nightstand that I would have to tell him first thing that evening. As well as a second piece of news I had been mulling over ever since I had locked him back into solitary. I just needed to find the right words to say it. They kept eluding me every time I tried to get them out. 

Pure exhaustion eventually got me to sleep at around midday, a few hours before my shift was due to start. If I hadn’t had my alarm set, I would have almost definitely slept through my shift. 

A full week of not sleeping properly really was taking a toll on me. I’d be thankful when my night shift was over. Then I could maybe have a full night’s sleep and not lay awake, wondering what kind of mischief Axl had gotten himself into while I wasn’t there to look over him. He definitely caused less trouble when I was there, and even if it was because he liked me, I was still thankful that I didn’t have to wrestle him into the straight jacket by myself. 

While I rode the shuttle to D Block, the DOE was tucked into my inside pocket, folded up into crisp thirds, and returned to the envelope, and my hand was shaking as I held it in as discreetly as possible. 

It just wasn’t fair that he didn’t have more time. Even if he did confess that his crime was an accident, it would take days to not only convince Warden Burke that he required a retrial, but even more to get a jury together. There just wasn’t that kind of time anymore. Especially with a date so close, the witnesses would already have begun being called, and soon, the mandatory testing of the chair would begin. And I’d be in charge of most of it. Axl’s death would be on my hands… 

The sudden thought made my stomach lurch and I could almost taste the bile rising. 

_Your fucking fault. Why didn’t you call for a retrial before now, you idiot fuckhead?_

The shuttle stopped in front of D Block and I almost ran off before my stomach had the opportunity to empty its contents. It only calmed down once I was inside the doors of D Block and had the chance to quell the shaking of my hands. 

“Izz, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Slash chuckled, putting out his smoke. 

“I’d prefer a ghost,” I murmured, rubbing my forehead quickly with my sleeve. “I’ll be fine. Just something I ate.” 

It was a quick little lie, but I didn’t know how to tell them I was so worked up over a DOE. I’d come across dozens of inmates who got served DOE’s during my time on D Block. Only about five of them like Tracii had gotten out. He was the first to go from death row to being free. I’d given the order for all of the rest of them to die. Three simple words that caused healthy living, breathing people to die: ‘roll on two’. They all deserved it deep down, but they were still human beings. 

“Are you sure? If you need a minute or two in the break room, I can cover for you,” he offered, getting up. 

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Where’s Steven? I’ve got something I need to show the two of you.” 

“Getting chewed out by Burke. Word got around to him that it was Axl who had given him the shiner, and I guess he’s just getting told that this is his last chance to straighten up before he gets replaced with a guard who can actually handle prisoners.” I couldn’t help but smirk a little before taking my seat at the desk. 

“The two of them fucked up. But Steven started it, so I guess he fucked up more,” I shrugged. “Anything to report on today’s activities?” Slash shook his head, his curls bouncing around everywhere. 

“Steven mostly just avoided Axl. So I got him out of solitary myself. No fuss and no punching involved. I think he’s been eager for you to get here though; he keeps asking about the time.” I had to will my cheeks not to get red with all the willpower I could possibly muster. “So, I guess I’ll be heading out. See you tomorrow, Izz.” He slapped me on the shoulder and strode out before I could think about the DOE that was still in my pocket. 

I didn’t remember and click back into reality until Axl’s voice broke through the quiet. 

“That felt like longer than twelve hours.” 

“Just twelve, Axl. I promise,” I chuckled, standing up. 

“Boss Adler isn’t coming back, right? Just you and me until morning, right?” The excitement in his voice made my heart break even further with every step. 

“Yeah, I think so. Unless he left something behind in the break room…” I bit my lip before I walked into Axl’s range of sight. 

“Axl, I’ve got something to tell you…” His smile disappeared quickly when he finally saw me. 

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” He whispered. 

“Axl, we can’t be together,” I finally blurted out, once again forgetting the DOE entirely. 

“Yeah, I know. You said that last night.” he shrugged. “I understand. If we get caught, then you get into shit, so all we have to do is not get caught.” 

“No. That’s not it… Axl, we can’t be together at all. It’s not possible. An inmate and a guard together? It can’t happen. I’m sorry I gave you that kiss in the first place. It wasn’t right of me to lead you on like that. We need to be like how we’re expected to be. You have to hate me for keeping you confined, and I’m supposed to see you as just another paycheck. I hate it, but it’s the way things have to be.” Axl stared at me blankly as I spoke. 

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” He eventually murmured. 

“I am. I wish I wasn’t. I’d do fucking anything to let this have worked out any other way, but I can’t. It just isn’t possible.” My inner cheek was starting to sting from how hard I was biting it to keep from crying. 

“So, if I was just a regular guy… And there weren’t any bars between us… we could be together?” 

“I don’t know, Ax. I just don’t know… It’s hard to know what things could have been like. All I know is that things are what they are. This isn’t Romeo and Juliet or some shit like that. We have to stay apart for our own good. And there’s nothing we can do to change that. Do you understand?” I wasn’t ordering, and I was barely asking. My voice was breaking into the region of begging. Axl only nodded wordlessly and turned around, lying on his bed with his back to me. 

“If you don’t mind, Boss Isbell, I’d like to be alone now. I’m sorry I tried so hard. I’ll just be your well-behaved inmate. But please leave,” he whispered, his own voice cracking from the overload of emotions. I nodded quietly and turned to go, only staying when I remembered the DOE again. 

“Axl, one more thing…” 

“Izzy, fuck off. Just fuck off and leave me alone.” His voice was curt and unyielding, and I got the message. It’d be better to tell him in the morning, once he’d had time to cool down. I walked back up the corridor and threw the DOE back down onto the desk before slumping into the chair behind it. 

I didn’t quite understand why I was so upset that he had clammed up. It had gone off without a hitch, after all. He hated me, and therefore, when he started acting cold and distant towards me, I wouldn’t be sorry to see him go. He just didn’t know that his time would be up after so little warning. And I was still the one at fault for not telling him. 

_Fuck, I need a smoke._

It was never easy to tell someone that they were going to die before their time was really up. It made me feel sort of like an unsuccessful doctor. But they knew that it was coming. With sick patients, there was always the small ray of hope. Hope that maybe it wasn’t as bad as originally thought and within a few months, everything would be going back to normal. With prisoners, there was no hope, and you could feel it in the air. It was always so thick during the last week before an execution. It was the smell of fear. And it stung. The only smell worse was the smell of burning flesh when an inmate was cooking. 

I shuddered a little at the thought, my mind going back to my first days on the job, when I still hadn’t been used to how things went in a prison. It had been a totally different set of guards back then; all of them had gone on to better things since. 

They hired me specifically for D Block, telling me that it was the trickiest job, but it did pay better than all the other positions, so of course I leapt at the opportunity. Younger me didn’t understand just how mentally and physically draining the workload was. But I learned quickly during the first month, when my first execution was scheduled to take place. Frank Campbell wasn’t like Axl in any way… 

_When I first caught sight of ol’ ‘Campbell the Cannibal’, he made me nervous. Not in the way Axl did, but in the genuine terror way. He never spoke to any of the guards in an intelligible way. But he muttered day in and day out. It seemed to be a made-up language for the most part, but he occasionally screamed in English. Mostly stuff about how the blood of the evil would satisfy the righteous. Cultish mumbo-jumbo he had invented while up in the hills. Guilty of kidnapping, rape, incest, murder, cannibalism, and multiple counts of all of them._

_One night, the night before his execution, I was in charge of serving him his final meal. He had originally asked for the blood of virgins, but when threatened by the head guard, he had laughed it off and changed his order to a hunk of raw beef and a couple of fixings. So, on his final night, I was wheeling the dinners down the middle of the corridor, pausing at almost every one of the six cells to deliver a tray of soggy meatloaf and a scoop of bland mashed potatoes, with a cup of water on the side._

_I delivered to Campbell’s cell last, as it had the most on it; the raw beef, as was requested, a full leg of mutton, some small roasted red potatoes, a container of a few spices, so that he could season at will, and a glass of cherry Kool-aid. He never broke eye contact with me while I set the dishes on his desk through the bars of his cell. The dishes were small enough to fit through, but that also meant my hand was small enough to fit through. Having only been on the job for a few days, I didn’t know how forbidden it was to put my own hands through the bars of a cell. Especially the cells of inmates as dangerous as Campbell. I guess I had figured that since he wasn’t moving a muscle while I loaded the meal onto his desk, he would stay put until it was all there. Plus, he was a bigger fellow, bordering on obese. There was no way he could get up and reach my hand before I pulled it out. On both accounts, I was dead wrong._

_The second the beef was on the desk, his meaty hand was around my wrist, and with a single tug, he had my entire arm inside of my cell and my face pressed up against the bars._

_“Soft… so soft… never seen a day’s work before, have you?” he whispered, licking his lips. “Never felt it this soft before… are you a virgin? You must be…” It only took two seconds between the time he grabbed me and the time I had backup aiming a gun at him through the bars._

_“Campbell, drop him!” I wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to, as I was sort of preoccupied with trying to remove my hand from the vice-like grip of a convicted cannibal. It was mostly the only thought on my mind. He was bringing my arm closer to his mouth and only dropped it when a warning shot was fired and narrowly missed his head._

_“I was just playing with him, Boss,” he chuckled. “Wouldn’t harm a hair on his pretty little head. No, not a hair…”_

_My heart was racing, and I could feel a new hatred for the man I hadn’t before. Something similar to what was probably felt by all his victims, from all his crimes. I wasn’t sure what he was planning to do to me, whether it was just teasing, or if he would have actually bitten open my forearm if he had the chance. I wouldn’t have put it past him._

_Early the next morning, witnesses starting filing into the small garage-like unit close to D Block, where the wooden folding chairs were all set up in neat rows and the electric chair was sitting on a platform up front, like a tiny wooden stage, where someone was going to come and put on a show for everyone in the audience. The people who came to witness were mostly family members of the youngsters he had led into his cult in the hills. Each family had someone they lost to Campbell, and they’d cheer just as loud when his performance finished. Some would probably even stand up and start clapping, and crying with joy._

_I wasn’t up front for that execution. Nor did I pull the lever. But I did help escort him into the garage and I helped strap down all his limbs to the hard oak chair. He was a bit too wide for it, so we had to shove a bit extra, but once we got him in, his arms and legs and neck were all buckled down, with good sturdy leather. A patch was shaved in the top of his head and a little sponge soaked with brine went onto it, with a metal cap going onto that. The brine conducted the electricity from the helmet directly into the brain, rendering the convict unconscious and making for a more humane execution, or so I had been told._

_Once I had done my part, I stepped back and held my hands behind my back, as protocol dictated. I wanted to smile as the chief read out the order for his death, but I held back, knowing that I was already on thin ice for fucking up dinner delivery and almost getting my arm chewed off. The chief gave the ‘roll on two’ command and the electricity began its course. It started with the sharp jolt to the brain to knock him out. Supposedly, anyway. It was hard to see with the silk mask over his face._

_Since most of the electricity came through by the head, the face would always become grotesquely altered, prompting guards to cover the face with a mask. Only a hole for the nose and the metal cap. Campbell was supposed to be unconscious for his death, but he still jolted around and he still screamed. Sometimes it was just shrieking, and other times it was begging for death to whichever deities he had invented in his cult. Near the end, he was screaming a prayer of sorts as his skin started to cook. I’ll always remember his last words, no matter how many times I try and forget:_

_“Hell waits for you, Isbell!”_

_He died as soon as the words left his mouth. His head slumped over and his body stopped jolting. The electricity was shut off and the entire group stood and cheered, just as was predicted. Most of them stayed until we had unstrapped his body and had taken it away, and even then we had to actively get them out so that we could clear out the unit and clean up the chair. It always stank like Hell when we moved the body, and I learned quickly that the best job to get was any that didn’t involve dealing with all the reminders that someone had just died on the chair. It was repulsive on every level. Unfortunately, I was the one who got stuck cleaning it off that time, the final words ringing in my ears while chills ran down my spine._

I knew then as I know now that those who die before your eyes don’t leave you. You reflect their ghosts until you finally go on and join them. Campbell gave me nightmares more often than not for a long time. They were almost bad enough to get me to resign. Almost, but not quite. For the amount of work I had to do, it was the best pay I could hope to get. Times were tough, and I really did need it. I slowly but surely forgot about Campbell except for the odd occasion, his memory replaced with others who had committed heinous crimes and fried before my eyes; eventually on my order. 

_Never get involved, never grow attached._

They were my first two orders. The ones I must obey under any circumstance. There were exceptions to every rule, but not that one. They could tell you all the stories about how their father never loved them and that they only found solace in illegal matters, but you weren’t allowed to care. You could listen, and offer suggestions and comforting words, but you weren’t allowed to care. Caring made you forget that you were in charge of a block of criminals who were the worst of the bunch. They made you regret seeing them go. So every and all emotional connections were forbidden. Forbidden, and yet, here I was, taking the mood swings of the prisoners over the regulations of the prison. Not just that, I was also sitting here after having just had the same kind of talk that a girl would have to her boyfriend after deciding that she just wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. I’d gotten involved. Way too deeply. And it not only hurt me, but it hurt Axl as well, even if he didn’t show it as much as he could have. 

I sat behind the desking, mulling everything over for longer than I anticipated, neglecting all the duties I still had to take care of as night guard. It just didn’t seem like there was a point to it. I hardly even moved until the sun started coming up through the D Block windows. Breakfast would arrive soon, and then I could properly tell Axl about the DOE. He needed to know, no matter the mood he was in. Breakfast was always an easier way to break bad news to someone. It was hard to be upset over food. Maybe afterwards, but never during a proper meal. 

A few minutes later, another guard came in, pushing a cart with two trays on top. When I didn’t have another guard on duty to get breakfast, I ate with the prisoners. I didn’t like it, but at least I occasionally got a hot meal in the mornings. And it was free. Free food, even when it comes from a prison cafeteria, is still free food. 

I hadn’t seen the guard before, nor did I know his name. It was strange how few of my coworkers I knew, even when we worked the same job at the same place for nearly the same pay. I suppose it happens when you’re trained for death row. I couldn’t get transferred to anywhere else, but all the other blocks had interchangeable guards. 

I thanked him for the meals, and he left with a nod. The trays contained the same meals, but the difference between a guard’s meal and a prisoner’s meal was clear; a guard’s meal didn’t look like it had been scraped out of the bottom of a pot. 

“Axl? You awake? Breakfast is here,” I yawned, carrying his tray down the corridor. No response. 

“Well, it’s coming anyway, whether you eat it or not is your choice.” There was a lump in the bed, facing towards the wall and away from me. As any guard would, I assumed the lumps were Axl sleeping, or trying to ignore me. I set the tray down in front of the cell door, close enough that Axl could reach out and grab what he wanted, if he ever chose to eat before the trays came to be collected. The thirty minutes came and went, with the already lukewarm food becoming cold as stone. No movement from inside his cell, and no noises either. No mattress creaking at all, which was next to impossible with them being so old and rickety in the first place. 

I only got up to retrieve his tray when Duff strolled in through the doors, looking as well-rested and happy as always. 

“Mornin’, Izz!” He smiled, stealing my seat behind the desk. “Got any news for me?” 

“Not much. Quiet night,” I yawned hard and bent over to pick up Axl’s uneaten breakfast. In my tired daze, I hardly noticed that the lumps under the blanket were facing the same way they had when I put the tray down. Only that Axl was still sleeping and hadn’t eaten. I placed his tray on top of my empty one by the D Block door and went to lean against the wall behind the desk. 

“I’m worried about Axl, though. He didn’t eat anything, and he hasn’t said a word at all. And this came in two days ago. I forgot to tell you about it.” I moved the folded-up DOE from the corner of the desk towards Duff, who picked it up and unfolded it. 

“Izz, that was really irresponsible of you. He’s already got a really close DOE; why didn’t you tell me sooner? Do Slash and Steven know?” I shook my head. 

“Steven was in shit last night, and something distracted me from telling Slash. Axl doesn’t know either…” Duff rolled his eyes in irritation. I couldn’t blame him. 

“Isbell, you’re a fucking idiot,” he groaned. “Why the fuck have you kept this from everyone for so long?” 

“Cause I’m an idiot, like you said. I was gonna tell Axl last night, but he was in a pissy mood, and I didn’t want to have to get him into solitary by myself.” 

“So, when are you gonna tell him?” 

“Whenever he wakes up, I guess,” I shrugged. 

“You’re way too fucking soft on him. This isn’t a daycare. Or have you forgotten?” I would have retorted with something snappy, but Duff had every right to chew me out. “He’s not supposed to be asleep right now anyway. I’m gonna go wake his ass up. Get the jacket on hold in case he gets mad.” I nodded and stood to fetch the jacket while Duff started off down the corridor, gripping his billy club as he walked. 

When he reached cell two, he banged it against the bars of the cell door, making a jarring ringing noise that rung out through the entire block and was most likely audible from outside. 

“Get up, Rosie. You’ve slept in!” he ordered, giving pause in his makeshift wake-up call. When the lumps under the blanket didn’t move, Duff hit the bars a few more times, then took out his keys, finding the one for cell two, then unlocking it. Duff was definitely in a pissy mood at Axl. He almost never had a bad temper unless someone really pushed him. He must have had other incidents of anger at Axl; otherwise, he’d have probably just thrown something at him through the bars. He unlocked the door and strode in shutting it behind him before throwing off the blankets. 

“Fuck!” He screamed. “Izzy, code 27! We’ve got an escapee!”


	9. Night Nine: Feb 8- Feb 9, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fuck you, Isbell,” he whispered, glaring daggers at me as I pressed the back of my hand to my bleeding nose.

I never officially ended my shift that morning. There wasn’t time for it. I had entered the code 27 into the prison emergency system, which let loose a piercing wail throughout the entire prison, both inside and outside on powerful bullhorns. Everyone within a couple of miles could have heard it. Immediately, all the guards started rounding up prisoners and locking doors after making checks. A full lock-down emergency. 

Since it was still early morning, the spotlights were switched on and started searching the prison yard as well as the surrounding mountains. Axl would be perfectly visible against the light brown rock, unless he had stripped naked, and even then, not perfectly invisible. His hair would be a dead giveaway, and there was no chance he’d be able to find an object sharp enough to cut off all his hair without hurting himself bad enough to cause a blood trail. There was no sign of him around the mountains, which led guards to assume he had already made it through, or was hiding out in some sort of ditch until nightfall. The police were notified and started scouting out the area on the far side of the mountains for an escapee. 

Inside the prison walls, Duff and I were double and triple-checking every orifice of D Block without help. Slash couldn’t get down for his shift, as the shuttle was automatically off-duty the second a code 27 went out and all the doors had their shutdown modes on, adding two inches of pure steel behind every door that came down from the ceilings like some sort of cheesy spy movie. I could never admit it, but it really was cool to see all the doors lower. 

All of the cells had been checked thoroughly for Axl, then relocked and checked again a few minutes later. While Duff was searching every other room at D Block, it fell upon me to try and find out how Axl had made it out of cell two. The toilet and sink were both in perfect working order, and nothing was hidden inside or behind either of them. The bed simply had the sheets and pillows bundled up and hidden under the blanket, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about the bed itself either. No holes in the floor or walls. I was stumped. 

Everything they had taught me about figuring out escape routes had completely escaped my mind once I checked all the obvious ways. All I knew for sure was that he had definitely gotten out through cell two. I had locked him in there, and had been watching him all night. Not him specifically, otherwise I would know how he did it, but I would have seen if his door had opened. 

I sat on the bed in defeat, trying to riddle out his Houdini scheme before I noticed that the bed seemed a bit softer than a regular prison mattress would be. Not enough softer that someone would notice immediately, but as someone who had been over all the ways a bed could be used to escape, I noticed. 

I stood up and pulled back the blankets completely, which revealed a fairly large hole in the mattress. Big enough that someone could, perhaps, pull out the springs. It wasn’t the most used method of escape, but inmates had been known to use springs to their advantage when making their way out of their cells. Springs weren’t sharp, but one with thick enough metal could potentially be used to slowly file through bars. But it’d take years to make a hole big enough to fit through. Unless one was an inmate as skinny and as limber as Axl. 

I crossed the small distance of the cell to the window and gave a small tug on the metal bars that ran up and down the window in front of the glass. They both fell off in my hands, revealing the scratchy file marks along the bottoms and tops. Axl would have had to bend the spring around the bars and rub back and forth fast enough to possibly make it through. And for eons. He probably worked every spare second that we weren’t checking on him. And if he had taken all the springs out, the mattress wouldn’t have squeaked. He could have gotten in and out in seconds without making a sound. But last night, he would have had to prep everything, take out the bars and the glass, climb through, and replace them back in their exact spots. Precise planning and execution to be able to have probably been gone for hours before I noticed. He was definitely gone when I had set the tray in front of his cell, but who knows how long before that. If he had gotten to the parking lot, he could have gotten a car and even been out of the state before Duff had found him gone. And it was all my fault… 

Once the full lockdown and prison sweep had been completed, I had been on duty for 18 hours. Then, and only then, did they start allowing guards to leave and get some well-deserved rest. The shuttle service started back up again and I climbed on after Slash exited to fulfill what was left of his shift. I wouldn’t be coming that night as far as Warden Burke was concerned. There was no point in wasting money on guards who had no one on their block. I wouldn’t be riding on that shuttle again until there was a new inmate for D Block, or until Axl was found. It was a sort of indefinite vacation but at the same time, I didn’t get paid for it. If there was no one on D Block for long enough, I’d eventually have to find something else to sustain me for the time being. It wasn’t a welcome concept, and I was going between rage and irritation the entire drive home. 

Slash and Duff were probably feeling the same way as they did all the paperwork that went with an escapee. But mostly rage. All guards got angry when someone snuck through the bars and made a break for it. Not only did the escapee make fools of us, but our jobs were also at stake, and there was endless paperwork to deal with that would decide how cells were reinforced all over the prison. Especially in the block that was busted out of. The only people who really benefited from breakouts were the prisoners who had foolproof ways out and even sturdier plans of how to not get caught. But the ones who didn’t and had plans filled with holes got caught and they got extra time. 

I pulled into my building’s parking lot, then basically trudged through the street door and my own door, flopping onto the couch in exhaustion. 18 straight hours was a lot to ask of someone, even if the overtime pay was pretty sweet. It just was too long… I was half asleep when a shadow fell over my face. I cracked a single eye open to see what exactly was occupying my sunbeam, but could only see the outline of a head from how thick the shadows around the face were. 

“If you’re an angel looking for a good soul, you’re in the wrong place…” I murmured, not fully registering what was going on. 

“You’re home late, Izz. I thought you’d be here by ten or so.” The deep voice of my presumed angel roused me a little more. I tried again to open an eye and actually see what was there. Long red hair and the sharp features and deep eyes of the escaped prisoner who had caused me so much grief in the last six hours. I sat up quickly and glared at him. 

“Axl, what the _actual, GODDAMN FUCK_ are you doing here?!” I nearly screamed, my hand automatically reaching for my billy club. 

“Easy, Isbell. I needed someplace to go, so I looked you up. Put the club away,” he said, definitely not nervous in the slightest. 

“How- no, why… Axl, what are you doing here?” 

“I got out and I needed some place to hide out. You’re the only one I can trust around here, so I came to you.” 

“But why? Why did you get out?” My mind was still spinning from exhaustion and shock and seeing Axl in his prison blues inside my apartment wasn’t making me any calmer. Axl reached for my hand that was still grabbing my billy club with white knuckles. 

“For us. You said we couldn’t be together because there were bars between us. That we couldn’t because I was a prisoner and you were a guard. Outside Mt Brownshit, we’re just Izzy and Axl. There’s nothing stopping us anymore.” He said it with such genuine delight, that it almost made my heart break again. 

“Axl, there is no ‘us’,” I murmured, moving my hand away from his. “There can’t be. It’s too late.” 

“But why? What’s stopping us? We can move to Mexico and they won’t find me. We won’t have anything to hide from anymore. We’ll both be free…” he whispered, sitting beside me on the couch, like some sort of awful romcom. Except I was the chick. 

“Axl, we won’t be free. We’ll both be hiding for the rest of our days. They’ll be looking for you until they know you’re dead, and I’d have to cut off contact with everyone I know. They’ll be trying to find me as well. Maybe if we were older and had nothing left to lose…” I was hoping I could make Axl see reason before I had to forcibly take him back to the prison but he wasn’t budging. 

“Izz, I know you care for me the way I do for you, otherwise you wouldn’t have blushed every time I looked at you, just like you are now.” I could feel my cheeks getting redder as he pointed it out no matter how much I tried to avoid it. “Not to mention, you keep trying to find loopholes in all the police reports and everything I say to try and prove me innocent, even though, for all you know, I did it on purpose and hoped to cause a mass killing. And you kissed me. You kissed me even after you denied your feelings over and over. I still don’t know why, but it’s either because you cared for me enough that you wanted to make happy, or because you cared for me enough that you wanted to indulge yourself. Either way, you want me, and I want you.” His eyes were deadly serious. He wanted a response, and he wanted it quick. 

“You’re right,” I admitted quietly. “I like you a lot, Axl. Whether I admitted it or not, even to myself, I’ve liked you since you walked through D Block. But I pushed you away to try and save myself… But it doesn’t fucking matter now.” 

“Sure it does,” he grinned. “I got you to admit it, and then the next step is to convince you to get us far away from here.” 

“Axl, the feds are sweeping the entire area for you. They don’t stop when they get the opportunity to shoot down a dead man. Where the fuck do you think they’re gonna look first?” I stood up, pulling away from him as I searched through my inside pocket. “Besides… it’s too late for us to do anything about it.”

I gently pulled out the DOE and dropped it into his lap. He picked it up and read it quietly, without saying a word. 

“How long have you known about this?” He asked quietly, folding it back up. “How long were you gonna keep my own fucking death day from me?” The only answer I could muster got caught in my embarrassment-lodged throat. “Fucking answer me, Isbell!” He screamed, standing up. “How long did you know?” 

“I got it the night we kissed. You never seemed to be in the right mood to hear it,” I protested, trying my hardest to stand my ground. 

“Good to know,” he grumbled, ripping the DOE in half. “It’s good to fucking know every single one of you fucking guards is the same. What else haven’t you told me? That that one was fake and they’re actually coming to blow my fucking brains out? I bet this whole ‘you kissing me’ thing was one big lead-on so that I’d shut up and be a good little lemming and jump off the cliff as soon as you say so.” 

“Is that what you want to hear? Fine, I’ll say it! I led you on so you’d be a model prisoner and keep Burke out of my ass for fucking up D Block. Up until now, it almost worked like a charm. But now you’re outside the walls, and I’m gonna get fired, so we’re both in deep shit.” Axl narrowed his eyes at me before pulling back and hitting me square in the nose, making my head snap back. 

“Fuck you, Isbell,” he whispered, glaring daggers at me as I pressed the back of my hand to my bleeding nose. It didn’t feel broken, but he definitely did a number on it. 

“Fuck you too,” I murmured. I moved my hand long enough to take the pair of handcuffs out of my belt pocket, letting blood drip down my uniform. Axl didn’t move when he saw the handcuffs. He didn’t even move when I slapped them around his wrists. The first time he moved without my direction was after I had closed the door on his new home; cell one.


	10. Night Ten: Feb 9- Feb 10, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axl sat up, finally turning towards me. It was only then when I saw his tear-streaked face. His eyes were hard and angry, but the sign of him crying was unmistakable

An escape from Mt Brownstone was big enough news that the press had not only heard, they had gotten access inside. Which made me just about as excited as getting phone calls to D Block. Everyone wanted to talk to the guard who had found and re-captured a death row inmate all by himself. And they especially wanted to talk to the prisoner who had somehow cut through steel and glass in under ten days. To his credit, Warden Burke refused both of their demands. He allowed a press conference, and he didn’t stop me from going back home after Axl had been put back behind bars. Unfortunately, he wasn’t enough of a good guy to give me the night off. Which was fair. It would have thrown off our entire system if I had taken the night off and gotten one of the guys to fill in for me, and it wasn’t like I was going to sleep that night anyway. May as well take the shift. 

By the time I clocked in for the night shift, the last of the press were filing out, probably overdue on their deadlines for the morning paper, and none of them looked twice at me. I was just the night guard to them, and good fucking riddance. I could almost see into Axl’s new cell from my desk, but he wasn’t close enough to the bars for me to be able to really get a look at him. Just two feet in the regulation black shoes of the prisoner uniform. He was stretched out on his bed. Probably asleep, judging by the lack of movement. Or dead. Less likely, but my flashbacks to Tracii and what Duff had to deal with forced me to stand up and take a look into his cell. At the sound of my footsteps, the shoes turned over to face the wall. Well, he wasn’t dead, so that was something. But the point of my job was to keep an eye on prisoners, so I kept walking down the corridor until I was standing in front of the bars of cell one. 

“What the fuck do you want, Izzy?” I heard Axl grumble. 

“It’s still Boss Isbell as long as you’re in there and I’m wearing this uniform,” I said, trying to figure out just what was going through Axl’s head. It wasn’t like him to just lie on his bed and do nothing. He was turned towards the wall beside his bed and his hair was covering his face enough that I couldn’t see anything. 

“A thousand apologies _Boss Isbell_. What the fuck do you want?” 

“Just doing my job. Making sure you aren’t doing anything stupid.” 

“Stupid like what? Getting myself onto death row? Done it already.” 

“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. Sit up,” I ordered, staring daggers towards him. 

“Or what? What can you possibly threaten me with? What else do I have to lose?” He growled. I raised an eyebrow, my lips curling into a smirk as I got an idea. 

“Life. Sit up, or I’ll extend your DOE.” The threat seemed to intrigue him. 

“Life? That’s the best you can do?” 

“It’s the only thing you can be threatened with. Because I finally figured out why you haven’t tried to prove your innocence yet.” 

“I thought you said that you didn’t care what happened to me? That you were using me to be a model prisoner.” 

“I don’t. And I was. I’m still trying to figure you out because you have an interesting case I haven’t come across before. No one’s ever voluntarily come to D block of their own free will. But you did.” Axl didn’t show any sign of having heard me. I kept talking anyway. The questions had been keeping me up for ages, and I wanted answers. Proper answers instead of yes or no questions. 

“You knew all about what it was like to grow up in a household where being gay is a sin. All the beatings. Your father was a reverend. He was probably stricter than my dad. You got beaten far worse than I did. It built hatred. Am I getting warmer?” Still no answer. I was on the right path. 

“That night, you called him to get him to the church. You had a gun there. Intended to kill him. And I think even yourself. He got it away from you and you tried to defend yourself. You tripped over the candle stand and the dry carpet went up right away. I just want to know why you ran when the church was going up if you did want to die.” 

Axl sat up, finally turning towards me. It was only then when I saw his tear-streaked face. His eyes were hard and angry, but the sign of him crying was unmistakable. 

“Well, am I right or not?” I demanded, crossing my arms. All of my instincts were telling me to get into that cell and comfort him, or at least try and see why he was so upset, but I didn’t. He needed to hate me. He had to hate me or else we’d both break… 

“I told you before I thought suicide was a cop-out,” he murmured. “I wasn’t going to die. I was going to live for the first time in a long time. I was going to live without that bastard.” He stood up and started approaching his bars. “I got a gun from a friend… Called up dear old pops in the middle of the night. I told him I knew his secret and that if he didn’t come to the church, it’d be all over the papers in the morning. Didn’t expect it to work, but it did.” 

“What secret?” I interrupted. Axl only chuckled. 

“Fuck if I know. But apparently he had one or he wouldn’t have come. He showed up, but came in a different door than I thought he would. Took me by surprise. He got the gun away from me but didn’t know the safety was off. He was trying to aim at me, but shot himself instead. When the body fell, he knocked over one of the candles. You know the rest of the story.” He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. 

“I wanted to be the one who killed him. I wanted to be the one who paid him back for what he did to my siblings and me. I had been planning and waiting for months, trying to figure out the right moment and place to strike. The place that would hurt him most and how I would do it. I didn’t have any particularly good friends; no chance of doing anything in school. I got obsessed with killing the son of a bitch. So much so that once he was actually dead and the church was burning to the ground, I didn’t know what to do with my life. So when they arrested me, I just didn’t say anything. That’s all it took. I’d get the chair and get everything over with. Simple.” A fresh tear started dripping down his cheek, which he wiped away angrily. 

“But it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead, and soon, I will be too. You said yourself there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I know you can’t extend the DOE. Appreciate the threat, though.” 

The silence that followed was one of the more uncomfortable ones that I’ve ever been a part of. He wasn’t wrong that there was nothing I could do about his sentence, and it tore me apart. He was innocent; just as I had suspected since I had first read his file. He just didn’t know where he was going or how to get there. He was a scared kid, deep inside. Just like me… What was I supposed to do when the date of his execution came? Tell Duff to roll on two? Let him go? Call for a retrial? I couldn't. It wasn’t my place to do so. There was only one man in the prison who had the authority to call for a retrial: Warden Burke himself. 

“Axl, what do you want me to do?” I eventually asked. “You’re the innocent one here.” 

“What can you do? I’m a dead man walking. I’ve done everything I wanted to do before I died, so what’s the point?” He shrugged, sitting back onto his bed, his hair flopping down to cover his face again. 

“The point is you still have your life ahead of you. You could get out of here if you just-” 

“That’s just it. I don’t want to get out of here. I plan to die in the room next door. I’m planning that you give the order, and after that, my schedule is wide open. If you don’t mind, Boss Isbell, I’m trying to get right with the Lord.” He lay back down onto the hard mattress, staring at the brick wall. Even though he had decided he was done talking to me, I still stood there. How often do you hear of a prisoner admit they want to be behind bars? Or that they plan to have you kill them within the next few days? His words sent a chill down my spine and the chill didn’t leave until I had sat down at my desk and pulled out a cigarette. As I lit it, I picked up the receiver and started to dial. 

“Warden Burke?” I whispered into it once I had gotten a response. “It’s Isbell from D block. Is your schedule open tomorrow night, sir? I need to talk with you, man to man.”


	11. Night Eleven: Feb 10- Feb 11, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Isbell, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. This case is one of the most open-and-shut ones I’ve ever seen.”

It had taken a significant amount of convincing and bribery to get anyone to cover my shift while I went to talk to Burke. Eventually, after I agreed that Steven could be the one on jolting duty for the next execution and that the three of them could divide my shift amongst themselves, they agreed. And thus, I was riding the shuttle not to check up on Axl, but to go talk to one of my most dreaded superiors. 

Warden Burke’s office was in the main building of the prison, a few doors down from the stairway up to the second floor. It offered him the perfect view out onto the road the shuttles took, and into the cell blocks through his doorway. He could probably see me approaching as I walked into the main building, and probably counted the minutes it took for me to pass through security and be permitted into the sections of the prison that were off-limits to prisoners. 

As a D Block guard, most of my colleagues that I came across only recognized me by my uniform. They didn’t know my name, nor did I know theirs. It was almost like we worked in entirely separate institutions. Which we basically did. None of them ever scheduled an appointment to talk with the warden about an execution, nor would they ever have to. I was given the occasional curt nod as I made my way up the stairs and towards Burke’s office. A voice inside told me to enter before I even had the chance to knock. 

When I did pull open the expensive-looking mahogany door, Burke was standing at his window, looking outwards, hands clasped behind his back. 

“You’re keeping me late, Isbell. There better be something really worth talking about,” he grumbled. I took off my hat and took a deep, quiet breath as I sat down in his visitors’ chair. 

“There is, sir. I need to talk to you about Axl…” 

“The redhead on D Block? What about him?” 

“Could you please sit, sir? It’s important,” I said, gaining confidence as I spoke, but not much. Burke turned towards me, an eyebrow raised. 

“What’s so important that you feel the authority to boss me around, Isbell?” He demanded. 

“I think we might be scheduled to put an innocent man to death.” 

“When has that stopped you from performing your duties before?” Burke finally turned away from the window and strode across his office towards the filing cabinet on the far side. 

“What’s he in for, anyway?” 

“He was charged with murder and arson, but-” 

“Murder and arson seems like pretty guilty to me. What’s his last name?” 

“Rose. Axl Rose.” Burke nodded and pulled out the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, flipping through the labelled files until he came across his copy of _Rose, Axl_ ’s file. Opening it up, he chuckled at the mugshot. “I forgot how much of a fairy-looking kid he was.” 

“He was charged with the murder and arson, but he never pleaded guilty.” I insisted. 

“Did he plead not guilty?” Burke asked snidely as he sat behind his desk with the folder. “According to his file, he never said a word in the courtroom.” 

“Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?” I retorted, feeling my cool slipping away. I already didn’t like this man. I liked him even less while I watched him read over Axl’s file with the experience he’d been gaining since before I was born. He was the only one who could stop Axl from being put to death in a matter of days. But he was also one of the only ones in Mt Brownstone who took genuine delight in wiping out delinquents and criminals, no matter what they did. 

“Isbell, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. This case is one of the most open-and-shut ones I’ve ever seen,” he shrugged as he tossed the folder to the side and leaned back in his chair. “A call told Bailey to go to the church, and at the church, there was yelling, a gunshot, and a fire. The body was burned, and so was the church. Have you even read this file? Rose hated Bailey. He wanted him dead and everyone they interviewed who knew him even the smallest bit could see that. You’ve spent enough time with Rose. There’s no way you haven’t seen the hatred he had for the man.” 

“With all due respect, sir…” I started, choosing my words carefully. “You’ve never met him. You’ve never seen the way he acts when you mention Bailey at all. Yes, he hated him and wanted him dead, but-” 

“But nothing, Isbell. He wanted him dead, so he shot him and burned the crime scene and the body to cover his tracks.” 

“But it wasn’t his gunshot. Bailey disarmed him and shot himself, knocking over a candle in the process.” I insisted, getting more and more flustered with every passing second. 

“The people of that town are down a church and a reverend, and it’s Rose’s fault,” Burke declared, waving his hand dismissively. “If he meant to kill Bailey and Bailey’s dead due to Rose, there is nothing showing him innocent. The execution will proceed as scheduled. And Isbell…” He leaned closer, motionning for me to do the same. “I want you to stop getting involved with the inmates. You’re far too trusting. The people you come across on D Block are there because they’re supposed to be. If you have any shred of intelligence in that head of yours, you’ll start seeing them like I do; scum, trash, worthless nothings. You’re only watching over them for as long as you are because it’s illegal to kill them sooner. Now get back to D Block and stop wasting overtime pay just because you don’t want to do another execution.” I nodded curtly and stood up, biting my tongue to ensure I didn’t get myself into any deeper shit. There was nothing else to do now… I had tried my last trick, and now Axl only had two days left to live.


	12. Night Twelve: Feb 11- Feb 12, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re the only person in my life who hasn’t tried to kill me. You’ve lied to me, you’ve brought me back here, and you’ve toyed with my emotions for the sake of your job, but…” He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath

When I got back to D Block that night, Axl didn’t talk to me. He moved enough to let me know that he was there and still alive, but not enough to show any signs of talking. I can’t say I blamed him. Duff was all too happy to leave earlier than what I had asked of him, and when I called Slash and Steven, they both sounded like they’d like to throw a party to celebrate not having to deal with Axl and were also all too glad to leave the second I entered D Block for the shift before Axl’s last day. 

According to the timesheet left on the desk, Axl hadn’t said anything all day. He skipped all his meals and thus forfeited all of his good time. Wasn’t much of a threat to him anymore. They had nothing to hold over his head without breaking some sort of law. Once I gave the timesheet a looking over, I went down to check on him again. The lumps under the thin prison blanket hadn’t moved since I had left that morning, but his feet were still visible and his hair was still fanned out around the pillow, so I could see he was still there. 

“Ax, are you asleep or pouting?” I whispered through the bars, trying to make sure that he was still alive under the blankets and hadn’t just been dead for two days without us noticing. A small grumbling noise sent away those fears, but he said nothing else. 

“If you want me to call someone to comfort you, you’re allowed to make that request,” I mentioned, trying to get him to move a little. He was being far too still and far too quiet for an inmate so close to his DOE. Inmates usually made jokes or asked for something to do to occupy their thoughts during their last few hours, and we weren’t allowed to refuse. They were high-risk and someone really should have been on the night shift with me for Axl’s last few days, but they were just all so against him. It was probably better if I kept them off duty. It’d keep Axl less tense and less likely to try and strangle himself somehow. 

“Someone to comfort me? Who’d want to do that?” He asked, a angry twinge to his voice. 

“People usually ask for a priest or preacher… someone to calm their nerves about dying,” I shrugged. “Should I make the call?” 

“Fuck, no,” he immediately said, sitting up. “The last thing I want is one of those bastards coming in here and telling me I’m going to go to heaven because I paid for my crimes when they’re ignoring all the perfectly valid reasons I’m going to hell. It’s where I belong, and I don’t want them telling me otherwise. Is there anyone else I can ask to spend my last day with?” 

“Almost anyone. There are a few regulations, but you get some sort of freedom to choose.” Axl looked down, biting his lip a little as his cheeks flushed. 

“Can it be you? I want to spend my last day with you, Izzy,” he whispered, sounding like his voice was clogging with emotion. His request threw me for a small loop. No prisoner had ever asked to specifically spend their last day alive with a guard. Well, none under my supervision, and as far as I knew, no one in the history of Mt Brownstone. 

“Me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from cracking at all. “You sure you don’t want anyone else?” Axl shook his head slowly, the long red strands covering his eyes once he’d finished. 

“You’re the only person in my life who hasn’t tried to kill me. You’ve lied to me, you’ve brought me back here, and you’ve toyed with my emotions for the sake of your job, but…” He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Izzy, you also risked your job to defend and protect me. No one’s ever done that for me before. No one cared enough to try. Even if it was just for the sake of your own conscience, I still appreciate it. I want you here. I don’t want to spend my last day with any of those other guards. I just want to spend it with you…” 

“Axl, the Warden is on my tail as it is. He doesn’t want me to have to keep wasting overtime pay. He’s very upset at me because of you anyway. I don’t think he’d allow me to stay for an entire extra day. Besides, I can’t take a triple shift and still be awake for the morning after. I’d be a liability,” I tried to explain, my brain still trying to wrap my head around his request. The sheer abnormality of it had surpassed all the training I had ever gotten. Primarily because guards weren’t supposed to get so close to their prisoners. I’d broken protocol time and time again for him, but this… It didn’t only go against every expectation I was supposed to have of the prisoners, but it’d also affect me and my body in a very bad way. 36 hours of staying awake as well as an execution at the end? It couldn’t be done… 

“So, you’re saying you can’t?” He whispered. 

“Not because I don’t want to. I just… Axl, I can’t be the only guard on duty for a full 36 hours. I trust you, but I also want to keep my job. I have it good here,” I protested, trying to be gentle about the whole thing. He nodded quietly, then turned and lied back down on his little bed, if you could even call it that. “Maybe I could stay for a little while at the end of this shift and come an hour or two early tonight. Would that be better?” 

“Don’t bother, Izz…” He murmured. “I’m past saving. I’m past doing favours for. Just having you be here for tomorrow night will be enough. It’s all I deserve.” Once the blankets were pulled up, I took it as an indicator that the conversation was over. He wasn’t going to talk until the next night. His final night…


	13. Night Thirteen: Feb 12- Feb 13, 1984

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU. 1984  
> Nestled in the mountains in the middle of nowhere is Mt. Brownstone Penitentiary, a place to stick the most wretched scum of the Earth and a place where noble guards have to keep watch over them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for self-harm

As soon as Duff entered the block for his shift, I was out of the door, hardly even giving him a runthrough of what had happened overnight. I couldn’t bear to see Axl any longer than I had to. The awkward silence that had filled the block all night was suffocating. He had made such a simple request, and I hadn’t been able to fulfill it. The first rule of D Block was to keep the prisoners calm. Part of that was giving them what they requested to do so, as long as it was within prison limits. Visitors weren’t forbidden. Especially on the final day. It was all to get prisoners calm and keep them that way. Prisoners with nothing left to lose needed something to take the edge off before they tried to hurt someone or themselves. All Axl wanted was me there instead of them. If there was someone else there besides me, I would have agreed in an instant. But there was just no chance I could watch and visit him at the same time in between two other shifts. And the guilt of it kept me up far longer than I had intended. Late enough that I may as well have just stayed to visit with him. 

By the time the alarm went off for me to get my ass in gear for what seemed to be my final shift for a while, I had only slept for an hour. Two, at the very most. When I got dressed in the proper Mt Brownstone uniform that morning, the usual sense of satisfaction I got by wearing a uniform was nonexistent. 

In 13 hours, I was ordering an innocent man to death; where was the satisfaction from that supposed to come from? The uniform was supposed to represent justice being served. But there was no justice here. Justice is supposed to reward the innocent and punish the guilty. I was rewarding the innocent with a couple dozen volts through his brain. 

What used to make me feel some sort of pride in myself… what used to make me feel like I actually had some sort of direction in my life… it disgusted me. The job disgusted me. The whole fucking system was repulsive. If I had anywhere else to go, I would. But there was nowhere else that would take me in. Not a job, or an apartment. All I had was the tiny fucking flat and a dead-end job killing cons. Not just cons… Axl. 

He wasn’t a nameless ‘con’ that I had been putting a blanket term on for years to retain my sanity. He was a kid, just a few months older than me… and because of unfortunate circumstances, I was on one side of the bars, and he was on the other. But not for long… There was no chance of him getting out. Nothing else I could do. And every step I took in the god-be-fucked uniform just felt like another knife to the gut. 

The drive I took through the surrounding mountains to Mt Brownstone was probably a bit erratic and slightly less-than-legal. I couldn’t bring myself to care. My thoughts were just as erratic and as unfocused as my driving. Thoughts of Axl and what was going to happen to him when the other three showed up to start prepping for… the grand finale early the next morning. Very early. There were chairs to set up, a prisoner to prep and witnesses to check in. It really was all a big production. A morbid theatre where Death himself played the main role. 

When I finally got myself into D Block, Duff and Slash stayed long enough to give me a pat on the shoulder before they walked out without a word. They might not have liked Axl all that much, but at least they understood that the two of us were close. Hopefully, they didn’t know just how close, but credit is due where it’s due. 

I tossed my cap onto the desk and started making my way down the corridor, hoping Axl was still awake. I needed to talk to him, and it was hard to do so when the person who requires a talking to is fully asleep. 

When I came face-to-face with cell one, Axl was sitting up in his bed, facing away from the bars. All I could see was his long red hair covering his back and the top part of his regulation blue jeans. 

“I’ve been thinking, Izzy…” He murmured, sounding far too quiet for everything to be okay. 

“About what?” 

“Death. What else would I be thinking about?” He had a point, but I tried not to dwell on it too much. 

“It’s usually best not to think about it. People have told me it’s more calming to try not to,” I suggested quietly, standing slightly closer to the bars to hear him better. 

“For me, death is calming. Well, it usually is. It used to be.” 

“It isn’t anymore?” 

“Hasn’t been for a long time.” He paused for a second, but not long enough for the silence to become awkward. “Izzy, when your father beat you, what did you think about afterwards?” 

What did I think about? I tried to think of nothing. Tried, but didn’t succeed, and that answer wouldn’t satisfy him. 

“Revenge. I was angry for a long time… hurting, confused… Why?” 

“Did he only beat you that one time?”

“He hit me for other reasons, but never a beating. Why do you want to know?” 

“I want to know which things I did in my life that were mistakes and which ones were actually the right thing to do that became covered up by guilt. There’s a lot of guilt to sift through.” 

“Axl, can you turn around? It’s easier to hear you when you’re facing me.” I thought my request was enough of a serious and reasonable one, but he only chuckled. 

“Not yet, Izzy. Soon, but not yet.” 

“Why not?” 

“Do you regret tricking me into falling in love with you?” His question sent an arrow through my heart. I had almost forgotten how I had lied to him to get him back to Mt Brownstone. 

“Axl, it wasn’t a trick. I just lied to you to get you back here.” 

“I thought you were doing all you could to get me out of here.” 

“Ironic, isn’t it?” I chuckled. “It’s the truth now, Axl. I was trying to alienate you from me in an effort to spare the both of us. It didn’t work, did it?” 

“It’s hard to fall out of love with someone that fast. Damn near impossible. Especially when everyone around us keeps pushing me into you.” He sighed and his head tilted up to the roof of his cell. “Why did you bother coming, Izzy? If you were trying to spare me, why didn’t you just try to get one of the other bastard guards to take over for you? After my execution, you’ll be having time off until the next con comes in, so why not just ask a favor? And don’t give me that crap about overtime pay. It’s bullshit and we both know it.” He had me there. The overtime excuse was just something I was trying to use to push myself away. 

“Would you believe that I hadn’t thought of calling in another favor?” I asked, sheepishly. 

“Not in the fucking slightest.” 

“Then would you believe it’s because I actually do care about you deeply and I didn’t want you to spend your last few hours alone?” 

“I could believe that, but how could you prove it?” I swallowed nervously and started fiddling on my belt for the ring of six keys. The one with a large number one emblazoned across the top made its way into my shaking hand, and then into the metal lock of cell one. “Turn around, Axl. I need to prove myself,” I whispered as I shuffled into the cell and closed the door behind me. He still didn’t turn; just tensed up. 

“Izzy, get out of here. I don’t want you to see this…” He murmured weakly, his upright posture slowly crumpling with every closer step I took. 

“See what?” I asked gently, trying not to startle him too much. 

“Remember when you said you wanted revenge on your father for beating you? After mine beat me, the only person I wanted revenge on was myself…” When he turned to face me, the first thing I noticed was his splotchy, tear-stained face. The second thing I noticed was the bloody bed spring clutched so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were turning white. The third thing I noticed was small lines of bright red streaking across his wrists. Blood. Both of his wrists were streaked with three bloody lines. Years of training had forced enough instinct on me to lunge forward and try to rip away the bed spring from him as quickly as possible. Not that Axl objected. Nor did he object when I threw it across the corridor and listened to it hit the back wall of cell four. 

“I wasn’t doing it to die. They’re not deep. Basically scratches,” he protested quietly, staring down at his bloodied wrists. 

“But why do it? What do you have to gain?” I whispered, sitting on the bed across from him. 

“You knew your father was the one at fault, because you were old enough to know he was the one who was wrong. You wanted revenge on him. My father… Well, both of them… they told me over and over and showed me in even more ways that I was going to hell practically since the minute I was born. Ever had someone fuck with your head for that long? It drives you off the fucking deep end. You start hating yourself to the very core. Izz, it eats you up. It eats you up and shits you out over and over. This…” he gestured down to the cuts. “I guess it’s my last revenge on myself. To make sure I feel something before you send me to where I belong.” 

“Axl, I need you to look at me,” I urged quietly. He did as I said, but his eyes were dull, like he had already died. “You aren’t going to hell. I don’t know where you’re going, but you’ve already lived through hell. You don’t need to hurt yourself like this to feel things.” 

“What else do I do while I’m waiting to die? If I’m hurting enough, death is a welcome change.” 

“Then try not to hurt. Axl, you’ve suffered enough,” I insisted, grabbing his hands in mine. 

“Why the fuck do you care? You’re the one who’s killing me,” he grumbled, ripping his hands away. “Just let me deal with this the only way I know how.” 

“Can you at least try the way I was thinking of?” I asked quietly. If he accidentally or purposely killed himself before the execution, there’d be no job waiting for me here when we got a new con on D block. He needed to calm down, and I was already fucked if anyone came in. Being inside a cell with a prisoner without backup or any sort of restraints was one of the most forbidden things a guard could do. But somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to give a fuck. 

“If it involves squeezing some sort of fucking stress ball, don’t waste your time.” 

“Would you stop being such a stubborn little shit and give me your hand?” I blurted out, my irritation with him reaching the boiling point. My outburst shocked me, and it must have shocked him too, because he placed his hands in mine with no complaint afterwards. I lifted one of his hands to my chest and placed it over my heart. 

“What do you feel?” 

“It’s… it’s your heart… but it’s going really fast. Why?” He wasn’t focused on death anymore; my plan was working. 

“It always goes fast when I’m near you. You make it go that fast. Want to know why?” He stayed focused on his palm against my uniform, not saying anything as he splayed his fingers across it. “Because it wasn’t a lie that I do care for you. That’s why I tried so hard to get you out of here to live your life.” I felt the lump rising in the back of my throat, and it wasn’t going down. “I defended you to my friends. I went to the warden for you. I could have gotten you out if you had just told one cop what happened. One. Fucking. Cop. Axl, you wrecked me. So I tried to push you away. And you wrecked me again.” A tear started dripping down my face and landed on my lap, an obvious wet spot on the dark blue fabric. “You fucked me over time and time again, and if I just had another week, I could have gotten you out. You’re going to be the death of me, Axl Rose.” 

“You’re going to be the death of me, too,” he finally answered, looking me dead in the eye. “But like you said, there’s nothing we can do anymore. So did you just come in here to make me feel guiltier than I already did, or did you want to do something with a dead man?” 

“There is something.” I bit my lip slightly, trying my best to stay confident in my words. “I want you to feel loved during your last hours. I want you to feel like how I did during my one summer with my old flame.” Axl only chuckled a little. 

“So you’re not only gay for me, but you also love me? We’re moving forward so fast, Boss Isbell.” A little smile found its way to my lips. 

“Lie down, you sarcastic bastard.” 

~

The hours went by fast… too fast. When the D block door opened, I was wrapped around Axl like he was some kind of security blanket, and he was firmly asleep in my arms. I was still fully dressed, thank fuck, but the door to cell one was still unlocked, and I was still inside. Only fast thinking and a miracle was going to get me out of this one. The fast thinking was a work in progress, and the miracle was that it was only Slash who had come through the doors and hadn’t noticed that the cell was unlocked, or that I was in it. 

Once I got myself untangled from Axl, I promptly shoved him on the floor. Everything afterwards happened quickly enough that I hardly registered what was happening. I knelt above Axl and took his wrist in my hand while covering his mouth with my other one to muffle his shouting. It took a second for Slash to realize something was wrong, but when he did, he ran to the door of cell one, baton raised in defense. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” He demanded. 

“The crazy fucker cut himself last night with a bed spring when I wasn’t looking!” I shot back, pulling Axl’s wrist to where Slash could see the lines that had been sliced in only a few hours before. “I came down here to check on him, and he was practically comatose, so I got him onto the floor to wake him up. Then I found these.” Slash shook his head angrily as he sheathed his baton. 

“Are we ever going to have an execution day that doesn’t start with attempted suicide?” I shrugged, the action practically stabbing me in the heart. I had thrown him completely under the bus just to save face, and it really hurt to do so. Especially when I could see the hurt in Axl’s eyes at being betrayed in such a way. The hurt and the anger. Fuck, he really was pissed at me. And I didn’t blame him. I didn’t move either hand until Slash started making his way back up the hallway. 

“No point bandaging,” he called back to me. “Just lock up again.” 

“Who died and made you chief?” I chuckled as I stood up and closed Axl’s cell door behind me. 

“If I’m showing up for a morning execution and I’m day chief, it’s my job,” he grinned as he sat down behind the desk. “But I’ll still let you give the order.” 

“You’re too kind, Boss Hudson. Are you going to be setting up chairs this morning, or is it my job?” 

“I think the chief should be the one who gets to sit around while his underlings do the menial labor,” he grinned as he sat back in the chair and lifted his feet onto it. 

“Understood, Boss Hudson. Any other orders for your underling?” 

“Bring me all the Playmates from this month’s issue and a few beers?” 

“Dream on, you crazy bastard,” I chuckled, making my way to cell three to start emptying the chairs from it into the empty garage unit a few doors away from the desk. I tried to focus on my task to avoid thinking of Axl. If the thoughts started, they wouldn’t stop and I’d delve too deeply into an emotional crisis about the true meaning of life that would consume me for the next coming months. So I just focussed on moving one chair at a time, no matter how silly it was to not take multiple at once. One at a time helped me to keep calm and focus. I was still working on moving chairs by the time Steven and Duff arrived. 

Our Boss assigned Steven to help me and Duff to start the ritualistic shaving of the condemned. The initial volt of electricity that hit the brain would catch hair on fire, which would only add unnecessary pain and burning to the condemned. Even though Slash was technically the one in charge, I’d still be the one to read out the little piece before he left his cell and before the lever was pulled for the volts to start coming. 

We got the chairs set up not a minute too soon. The first shuttle of witnesses pulled up to the front gate of the prison, waiting in line to go through all the necessary security checks before they would be sent down to D Block to take their seats for the show. Steven stayed behind in the garage unit to check off names on the list of approved witnesses while I made my way to cell one, where Slash was leaning against the bars and Duff was using a straight-razor to clean up the spots around the hairless circle in the middle of Axl’s head. Axl himself was staring straight ahead, his eyes completely void of any emotion. 

“Is it time?” He asked quietly, not even bothering to look at me. Which, admittedly, I didn’t expect him to. 

“Not yet…” I murmured. “Boss Adler is checking in witnesses and I have to read you a legal proclamation.” 

“Do whatever you have to do, Boss Isbell. Just do it fast. I’m tired of waiting around.” 

“Not long, Axl. Should only be about twenty minutes. Now is usually the time when the condemned do some praying.” 

“I don’t want to pray. You know that. Can’t you just go and help out Boss Adler to speed up the process?” Slash and Duff looked at each other and shrugged before Slash walked away, most likely to go do as Axl suggested, though knowing Slash when he was on a power trip, such a guess was a gamble. 

“What about you, Boss McKagan? What do you plan to do for the next twenty minutes?” Axl asked, looking upwards at Duff innocently. “Watch you with Boss Isbell until it’s time. I’m not letting another inmate almost die before it’s their time.” 

“Just watching me? You have nothing better to do during that time? Take a walk, take a piss? Jerk off a little?” He smirked. Duff took out his baton and hit the bars of the cell quickly, a gesture of intimidation I had seen him use before, but definitely not often. He was usually much more of a lover than a fighter. 

“It’s not a matter of what I want to do. It’s a matter of it being execution day and you’re not only condemned, but marked ‘at risk’. So you can shut the hell up before I bring out the jacket,” he warned before re-sheathing his baton. 

“Understood, Boss McKagan.” There was an uncomfortable near-silence while we waited. Axl didn’t dare to speak, Duff didn’t want to, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. All there was to cause noise was the din of the talking witnesses who had already been seated in the garage. Once all 16 of them were checked in and seated, Slash came back to the cell, looking far too jubilant for the circumstances. 

“All ready back here. Bring out the dead man when protocol’s been met,” he ordered, then practically skipped back to the garage. 

_Here we go… no turning back…_

I gave him the speech I had read to at least a dozen men before him and had listened to from a couple dozen different instances where my superiors read it. The words never changed; all about how he was sentenced to death and all that jazz. Duff slapped the handcuffs across his wrists and took hold of his left arm as our little group started walking back up the hallway for the last time. 

The entire time, Axl refused to look me in the eye. Never even in my direction. And he never would get the chance to. Not until Duff brought him into the garage and 16 pairs of accusing eyes watched his every move as he sat into the old wooden chair on the small platform against the wall. Slash was standing on the other side of the platform with a bucket of brine and a dried sponge in his other hand. Steven was behind the metal barrier that separated the activator switch and the witnesses. I know I must have taken part in attaching Axl to the chair… Some part in strapping down his wrists and legs, but I don’t remember any of it. Most of what transpired remained as a daze in my memory. The first thing I do remember is the cold brine splashing against my fingers as Slash laid the small circle of sponge on the top of Axl’s head to conduct electricity between the helmet I attached on his head and his brain. Axl never lost his stone-cold glare. Not for one moment as he watched me. 

Once he sat down, his eyes never left me. 

“Roll on one,” I ordered once he had been properly strapped in. Steven switched on the generator, making electricity begin to flow through the wires of the old chair. Everything was set. All that was left were the final words… 

“Axl Rose, you have been condemned to die by a jury of your peers, sentence imposed by a judge in good standing in this state. Do you have anything to say before the sentence is carried out?” I declared, trying to keep my voice calm as everyone took their places, standing around the platform to watch. 

“Just a few, Boss Isbell, if you don’t mind,” he growled, staring daggers directly at me. “I’m a sinner, but not in the way everyone in this room thinks I am. I didn’t burn down the church. I didn’t kill my dear old stepfather, but on my word, I wish I had.” He paused for a breath and turned to everyone in the room, looking from face to face. 

“I didn’t burn down the church, but I wish I had! I wish I had burned it down when it was full of people who were secretly sinners just as bad as me! I didn’t kill Reverend Bailey, but I wish I had! I wish I had made him suffer like he made me suffer. I wish I could have scarred him for loving as bad as he scarred me! I wish I had beaten him until he begged for mercy, then brought him down to Hell myself. Boss Isbell, you aren’t about to kill a guilty man. You’re killing the one who loves you and who you love, and I fucking thank you for it!” He sighed and looked back down at his lap, the helmet preventing him from going down the full way. “Roll on two, already. Get it over with.” The silence inside the garage was more deafening than I had ever heard before. Everyone in the room was waiting for me to give the order. Even the man who was sitting in the chair waiting to die. He wanted me to as much as anyone. 

“Izzy, you have to say it… you’re the one running the show,” Duff whispered to me, breaking my daze. 

“Electricity shall now be passed through your body until you are dead, in accordance with state law. God have mercy on your soul,” I murmured, just loud enough for my words to be classified as an order. Axl looked up; one final time to mouth the words ‘I love you’ to me. 

It was the last thing he did before somewhere, someone (most likely me) gave the order to “roll on two,” and Steven threw the switch. 

:::: _EPILOGUE_ :::::

I don’t know what happened to the body. No one saw it fit to tell me once the hospital doctor declared Axl Rose dead. They just took away the body and left me to clean up the chairs. 

One by one, just like how it had been when I took them out. 

There were no more witnesses and no more convicts on D Block. No one else waiting for their turn on the chair. The four of us were effectively unemployed until the next scumbag walked through the doors. But I wasn’t going to be waiting when he did. 

My time on D Block was finished and I knew that now. The emotional toll of getting attached to the ones who didn’t seem too evil and then to watch them die under my command was killing me as much as it was killing them. 

_One chair at a time… Just one chair at a time…_

The job was tedious, and it blurred my thoughts easily enough that by the end of my cleaning, I realized I had stacked all the chairs back into cell two, like they had been the night Axl first came to D Block, instead of cell three, where Warden Burke had told Slash and me to move them to. They were leaning up against the wall beside the broken window, the one Axl had escaped through. 

It really was amazing that even though the cell was nearly identical to the other five, every detail of it reminded me of him. The sheets had been changed, but the small mattress hadn’t; it still smelled like him. The chair hadn’t been exchanged… The one he sat in while he was writing on the desk. It would always be Axl’s chair and desk in the back of my mind. And the drawers… Although they were supposed to be regularly checked, they usually weren’t, in an effort to preserve some sort of sense of privacy, which was an all-too-rare privilege in Mt Brownstone. Well, if cell two was to resume its position as the storage unit, it may as well be cleaned out again… 

The top and middle drawers held only a few sheets of loose paper and a couple of felt-tip pens, but the bottom drawer had only a single piece of paper with words scribbled only on one side. 

_Dear Izzy, I don’t know when you’re going to find this, or if you ever are, but assume I’m probably dead by the time you read this. Keep this note. Keep it so you don’t forget me and that old flame of yours. Don’t forget who you are, and don’t let the bastards who hurt you win. Keep on punching, Boss Isbell. Love, your friendly neighborhood convict, Axl Rose._

I read the letter once. Then I read it again. 

And for the first time since I took my job at Mt Brownstone Penitentiary, I prayed for my soul.


End file.
